RECOLLECTIONS OF A VIRGINIAN
IN THE
MEXICAN, INDIAN, AND CIVIL WARSBYGENERAL DABNEY HERNDON MAURY
EX-UNITED STATES MINISTER TO COLOMBIASECOND EDITIONNEW YORKCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS1894COPYRIGHT, 1894, BYCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
To My Children

I AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBE THESE MEMOIRS OF AN OLD
SOLDIER TO MY DEVOTED CHILDREN, WHO FOR
TWENTY YEARS HAVE BEEN THE SOLACE AND PRIDE OF
MY LIFE. AND I WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE MY SPECIAL
DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO MY DAUGHTER ROSE, WHOSE
ENCOURAGEMENT AND PRACTICAL AID HAVE BEEN OF
THE GREATEST HELP TO ME IN THE PREPARATION OF
THIS VOLUME

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Fredericksburg, its People and its History - Traditions of
George Washington and of the Lees - Anecdotes of
Other Famous Men and Quaint Characters of the Town -
Country Homes of the Gentry - General Lafayette's Visit
- The Maury Family - Social Life before the War - The
Generous Hospitality of the Old Days . . . . . 1CHAPTER II
Captain John Minor Maury's Active and Adventurous Life -
Personal Traits of Matthew Fontaine Maury - His Character
and his Scientific Achievements - At the University
of Virginia - Shakespeare Caldwell's Career - A Cadet at
West Point - Incidents of the Life there - Anecdotes of
Grant, McClellan, Jackson, and Others . . . . . 14CHAPTER III
Graduated at West Point and off for the Mexican War -
Operations of the Campaign under General Scott and
General Taylor - Anecdotes of these Commanders -
Other Officers who became Eminent in the Civil War -
The Capture of Vera Cruz - Wounded at Cerro Gordo
- In the Hospital - The journey to Jalapa . . . . . 27CHAPTER IV
Recollections of Jalapa - General Harney and the Seminoles
- White Sulphur Springs and its Patrons before the War
- The Ashby Brothers - Ordered to West Point as
Instructor - Sports and Jokes of the Officers' Mess
- Anecdotes of McClellan, Fitz John Porter, and Others
- Shooting and Other Excursions . . . . . 42CHAPTER V
The Rifles ordered to Oregon - Captain Stuart's Tragic Fate -
Reminiscences of McClellan - His Capacity and Character
Illustrated - His Comments upon Foreign Campaigns - His
Popularity with his Troops - A Criticism of the Crimean War -
McClellan and Grant contrasted - Generals Franklin, Hancock,
and Meade - Young Jerome Bonaparte . . . . . 57CHAPTER VI
General Stonewall Jackson - His Remarkable Character -
Married at “Cleveland” to the Eldest Daughter of Mr. Wiley
Roy Mason - Anecdotes of General Burnside - On
the Texas Frontier with the Rifles - The Life at Fort Inge
- Mrs. Maury's journey to the Post - Promoted and transferred -
Sent Home on Sick Leave . . . . . 71CHAPTER VII
Philadelphia Hospitality - The Wreck of the Steamship San
Francisco - An Expedition to New Mexico under General
Persifer Smith - Incidents of the March - The Beauty of
the Wild Rose Pass - Hunting Adventures - Peculiarities
of the Game of the Country - Encounters with the Apaches -
Odd Characters - Arrival at Laredo . . . . . 83CHAPTER VIII
Big Game Hunting in Texas - Encounter with an American
Lion - Exciting Fight with a Wild Bull - Pierced with
Cactus Spikes - Fierce Battle with a Wounded Cow - On
Recruiting Service at Carlisle Barracks - New Tactics for
Mounted Rifles - The May Family - Sad Results of a
Duel . . . . . 95CHAPTER IX
Across the Plains from Kansas to New Mexico - Incidents of
the Long Journey - A Paradise for the Hunter of Antelope
and Buffalo - A Buffalo Hunt ending in a Tragedy -
Skirmishes with Hostile Indians - A Surprise and Defeat
for the Comanches - The Record of the Rifles . . . . . 108CHAPTER X
A Story of Indian Barbarity - “Red Jackson's” Fight with a
Grizzly - Wolf-Hunting with Greyhounds - Exploits
of 'Possum and Toots - Capturing a Grizzly's Cubs -
Transferred to Santa Fé - Anxiety over the Tension
between the North and the South - How the News of
the Fall of Sumter was received . . . . . 121CHAPTER XI
An Expedition against the Navajoes - The Modoc Chief,
Captain Jack - The Journey Home from New Mexico at
the Outbreak of the Civil War - The Feeling among
Army Men - “Stricken from the Rolls” - Experiences
in Leavenworth, Topeka, and on the March - General
George H. Thomas . . . . . 131CHAPTER XII
Arrival in Richmond - On the Battle-field at Manassas -
Embarrassing Interview with General Joseph E. Johnston -
His Protest against being superseded by General Lee -
His Removal from the Command of the Army of Tennessee
- Anecdotes of Johnston - His Personal Traits and Family
Life - His Opinions of Napoleon, Marlborough, Forrest,
and Others . . . . . 143CHAPTER XIII
In the Trans-Mississippi Campaign under Van Dorn - A
Virginian's Hospitality - Incidents of the Retreat from
Corinth, after Shiloh - The Adventures of Jem, the
Colored Boy, a Type of the Loyal Servant - His
Encounter with General Price - A Quaint and
Humorous Character . . . . . 156CHAPTER XIV
Promoted to Brigadier-General - An Interrupted Christmas
Dinner - Captain Bledsoe - Incidents of Van Dorn's Campaign in
Mississippi - Ross' Brigade of Undisciplined Texans -
Measures for the Defence of Vicksburg - Operations of
Porter and Sherman - Repelling General Quinby . . . . . 166CHAPTER XV
Mysterious Disappearance of Young John Herndon Maury -
Grant and Porter aid in the Search for him - Conjectures
and Theories regarding his Fate - A Christening under Fire
- Anecdotes of Dr. Lord - A Magnificent Spectacle when
Porter ran the Vicksburg Batteries - An Interrupted Ball . . . . . 179CHAPTER XVI
Transferred to the Command of the Department of the Gulf,
at Mobile - Experiences with “Galvanized Yankees” -
How a Spy was trapped - Colonel Henry Maury's Adventurous
Career - His Coolness and Bravery in Peril - A Duel -
Tried by Court-Martial and Acquitted - Anecdotes
of Bishop Wilmer of Alabama . . . . . 190CHAPTER XVII
Recollections of General Forrest - His Personal Appearance
and Traits - His Characteristics as a Commander - Never
surprised or attacked - Ignorant of Tactics, but Great in
Strategy - Instances of his Aggressive Self-Reliance, his
Rapidity of Movement, and his Personal Power over his
Men - The Fort Pillow Episode . . . . . 204CHAPTER XVIII
Forrest's Criticism of the Battle of Chickamauga - He
retires to his Plantation after the War, broken in Health,
Fortune, and Spirit - Pronounced the Greatest Soldier of
this Generation -
Anecdotes of General Dick Taylor - His Ability
as a Soldier and his Wit as a Talker - His Opinion of
West Point . . . . . 219CHAPTER XIX
Last Day of Service for the Confederacy - Beginning the
Journey Home - Hospitalities on the Way - Condition
of the South after the War - Arrival at Richmond - General
Lee's Opinion of the Oath of Allegiance - His Manner
of administering a Rebuke - Other Aspects of his
Character illustrated - Death of Mr. Mason . . . . . 231CHAPTER XX
The Classical and Mathematical Academy of Fredericksburg
established - Accepts a Business Offer in New Orleans -
Engages in the Manufacture of Resin and Turpentine -
Disastrous Results of this Enterprise - Preventing a Duel -
Preservation of Southern War Records - Organization
of the National Guard - Recollections of Senator M. C.
Butler . . . . . 242CHAPTER XXI
Appointed Minister to the United States of Colombia -
Panama and its Scenery - An Event in the History of
Cartagena - The journey up the Magdalena River - Alligator
Shooting - By Mules from Honda to Bogotá - The Country
and its People and Agricultural Resources - The Cattle
and Horses . . . . . 258CHAPTER XXII
The City of Bogotá - The Clergy, the Military, and the People
- Trade Relations with the United States - Social Life in
Town and Country - Duck Shooting - Mineral Wealth
of the Country - An Exciting Dog-Cart Drive down the
Andes - General Henry Morgan - Return to the United
States . . . . . 269
CHAPTER I

Fredericksburg, its People and its History - Traditions of George
Washington and of the Lees - Anecdotes of Other Famous Men,
and Quaint Characters of the Town - Country Homes of the Gentry
- General Lafayette's Visit - The Maury Family - Social Life
before the War - The Generous Hospitality of the Old Days

FREDERICKSBURG, Virginia, is one of the historic towns of America.
Founded long before the Revolution, upon the Rappahannock River, at the head of tide-water, it commanded for many years the trade of the opulent planters of
all that fertile region lying along the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay. The town was the centre of the commercial and social life of that rich region known as the Northern Neck of
Virginia and the Piedmont country, where were born and bred the great
Fathers of American liberty. In my boyhood there were many there who had
walked and talked with John Marshall, George Washington, George Mason,
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and the Lees.

For more than a century prior to the Revolution, the sturdy people of
that region were often engaged in active war with the great Indian nation
once ruled by King Powhatan. In the rebellion of Nathaniel Bacon against
Sir William Berkeley two centuries ago, several thousand horsemen marched
under his command to assert those principles of popular rights which
were proclaimed and
established in 1776. Many of these soldiers were from Fredericksburg
and its vicinity, and it was inevitable that the descendants of these
men should be the very first to arm against the encroachments of the
British crown, and it was in Fredericksburg that a convention of delegates
of twelve companies of horse assembled and, proclaiming their purpose to
defend the colony of Virginia, or any other colony, against the
king of England, marched, under the command of Patrick Henry,
against Lord Dunmore in his capital. This occurred twenty-one
days before the famous Declaration of Mecklenburg, and was
therefore the first and most emphatic declaration of our independence.
In 1782, when that independence had been accomplished, it was a citizen
of Fredericksburg who introduced into the Legislature, which had then
replaced the House of Burgesses, the first resolution for the emancipation
of the negroes, and for the prohibition of the slave trade, ever offered
in America. General John Minor, who had fought throughout the war, was the
author and advocate of the measure.

George Washington had his boyhood's home in Fredericksburg, and after
his public career ended he used to go there to visit his venerable mother.
His arrival was the occasion of great conviviality and rejoicing. Dinner
parties and card parties were then in order, and we find, in that wonderful
record of his daily receipts and expenditures, that on one of these
occasions he won thirty guineas at loo. Probably it was after this night
that he threw the historic dollar across the river, the only instance of
extravagance ever charged against him. A dinner party was usually given to him
on his arrival at the old Indian Queen Tavern, where, tradition tells us, drink
was deep and play was high.

It is generally believed that Washington did not laugh
or enjoy a joke. I have often heard judge Francis Taliaferro Brooke,
for many years Chief justice of Virginia, say this was not true.
Washington often dined at Smithfield, the home of the Brooke family.
It is now known in the histories of the battle of Fredericksburg as
the “Pratt House.” Judge Brooke used to tell of a dinner given to
Washington at the Indian Queen Tavern, at which he was present. A British
officer sang a comic song, - a very improper song, but as funny as it was
improper, - at which Washington laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks,
and called upon the singer to repeat it.

The Lees frequented Fredericksburg, and Light Horse Harry was once in
prison bounds there for debt. It is related that from the jail of that
town he wrote to his old friend Robert Morris about his sad case,
and asked him to accommodate him with a loan. The great financier replied
that he was “very sorry he could not oblige him, because he, too, was in
the same condition”! Our greater Lee, Robert Edward, used to make his
summer home at Chatham, that old, colonial house just opposite Fredericksburg,
then the residence of Fitzhugh. Stratford, where Lee was born, lies on the
Potomac, near Wakefield, the birthplace of Washington. Mrs. Lee found the
place too unhealthy for summer residence, and moved, with her children,
up to the purer air of Chatham. The estate of Chatham adjoined the land of
Mrs. Washington, where her son George broke the colt and barked the cherry tree.

Early in this century, General John Minor lived in the fine old house of Hazel
Hill. He was one of the leading gentlemen of his day, and was remarkable
for his benevolence and generosity. William Wirt paid high and eloquent tribute
to General Minor's consideration for the young lawyers who were struggling
up in the
profession. His negro butler was named Josephus, and was commonly called
Joe. Joe had a son whom he named “Jimsephus.” General Minor manumitted him,
after he had been educated and had been taught the trade of printer, and
he was sent to Liberia, where for many years Mr. James Sephas was
the able editor of the Liberia Herald.

In the fierce struggle between the Federal and Statesrights
parties General Minor ran for Congress against James Monroe,
then a resident of the town. Monroe beat him, but it made no difference
in the personal relations of these high gentlemen. General Minor named a
son after James Monroe, and Dr. James Monroe Minor entered the Navy as
a surgeon. He married into the Pierrepont family of New York, where he
became eminent in his profession.

On one occasion, the general went into a shoe store, and found a
bright-looking country girl in sharp controversy with the merchant
over a pair of shoes. Pleased with the girl's intelligence, he purchased
the shoes and gave them to her. On the next Valentine's Day he received
this: -

“If these few lines you do accept,A pair of shoes I shall expect.If these few lines you do refuse,I shall expect a pair of shoes.”

She got the shoes. The distinguished law teacher of the University of
Virginia, Professor, John Minor, is the general's nephew and namesake.

Many of our people advocated negro emancipation and colonization. My
grandfather, Mr. Fontaine Maury, manumitted his slaves, and had one of
them, a bright young fellow, educated for the law. He was sent to
Liberia, where he became the highly respected Judge Draper, of Monrovia.
President Monroe, then a lawyer in Fredericksburg, was the great advocate
of the emancipation and colonization of the negro. The capital of Liberia
was named in his honor, Monrovia. Henry Clay, from the neighboring county
of Hanover, was also the champion of emancipation, and president of the colonization society.

Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury also made his home in Fredericksburg,
where he married the sister of Captain William Lewis Herndon, that captain
who commanded the Central America on her last, ill-fated voyage, and who,
after he had placed all the women and children and as many as possible
of the men passengers safely in the boats, refused, himself, to follow,
because he would not desert his sinking ship. Dressing himself in his full
uniform, he took his place upon the bridge, and as the vessel sank into
the waves, her captain passed, with bowed and uncovered head, into the
presence of his Maker.

It was many years prior to this that some good ladies of the town discovered
a boy of about ten years in the act of climbing the lightning-rod of old
Saint George's steeple to the cross above it. They publicly prophesied
that the boy would never come to any good, and doubtless remembered him
in their prayers; and these prevailed, for, long afterward, our country
was deeply moved by the thrilling story of the Darien expedition, - of
how it wandered, lost in the forests of Panama, many perishing, and of how
the survivors owed their safety to this same hero, whose courage and
self-devotion made the name of Jack Maury loved and honored forever.

The Honorable Samuel Southard, once Secretary of the Navy, married and
lived for a time in Fredericksburg.
To his kindness many of our boys owed their commissions in the Navy. A
nephew of his by marriage was Jim Harrow, noted for his pugnacity. Jim
was a member of the company which marched, in the beginning of the war,
to defend Acquia Creek against the United States steamer Pawnee. Whenever
the Pawnee would fire a shot, Jim Harrow would jump upon the parapet, and
flap his arms and crow like a chicken cock. He also showed his contempt
for the enemy by going beyond the works, and finally took his stand by a
persimmon tree outside. A shot from the Pawnee struck the tree and cut it
down, and Jim Harrow disappeared from view, enveloped in the smoke and
dust and débris of the explosion. An old cannoneer exclaimed, “Thank God,
that infernal fool is dead at last!” The words were scarcely uttered when
there was a movement among the branches of the tree, and Jim Harrow emerged,
rolling up his sleeves, and calling upon the man who had “thanked God
he was dead” to come out, that he might lick him. Three years later, Jim's
fights were ended by a Confederate deserter whom he attempted to arrest.

Mrs. Little, a lady of high culture and excellence, presided over the
Academy to which the best people of the town and neighboring counties sent
their daughters for education. An old planter of the Northern Neck took
his darling daughter there. One of Mrs. Little's scholars was a Miss Richardetta
H., whose name in the school was inevitably abbreviated to “Dick.” The
newcomer was enraptured with all her surroundings, and wrote home
eloquently about the charms of her roommate, Dick H. Her father was
astounded. He had heard much of the high character of Mrs. Little's school.
He had also a fearful apprehension of the snares which
might be set for a young creature just from the seclusion of her country
home, thrown at once into the fashionable vortex of the city of Fredericksburg.
So he ordered out his carriage, and posted up to town, to take prompt
measures about this business. He found Dick H. a gentle, refined girl,
worthy of her distinguished family. She still lives, and is the wife of
a prominent ex-general of the Confederacy.

Colonel Byrd Willis was one of the famous characters of his day. Connected
with the most influential families of the State, he was the noted wit and
raconteur of that old town. Weighing over three hundred pounds, he might
have played Falstaff without the padding, and in his geniality and kindness
equalled Shakespeare's masterpiece. The charming Princess Achille Murat was
his daughter. She was an ornament of the court of the third Emperor,
and was always the invited guest of the fashionable watering-places of
Virginia. After breaking up his home in Florida, Colonel Willis returned
to end his days in Fredericksburg. He paid liberally for his board to his
landlady, a decayed gentlewoman and kinswoman, of great piety, but ate
his meals at the best restaurant; for he enjoyed the pleasures of the
table, and old Mrs. Carter's poverty and unthrift were great. He used to
tell, how, one day, all of her resources being exhausted, the old lady
took to her bed, saying to her housekeeper, “Nancy, there's nothing in
the house but mush for dinner. Give that to my boarders. If they are
Christians, they will eat it and be thankful; if they are not Christians,
it is much better than they deserve.”

About 1795 Robert Brooke, governor of Virginia, built his home upon
Federal Hill, which looks over Sandy Bottom to Marye's Heights, a thousand
yards away. Early in this century, Governor Brooke being dead,
Federal Hill became the property of the family of Cobb, since of Georgia.
Governor Cobb, of Georgia, and his brother, General Sylvanus Cobb, lived
there as boys. In the great battle a Federal battery was placed on the lawn
of Federal Hill. General Sylvanus Cobb, for the first time since his boyhood,
looked again upon his old home from the stone wall at the foot of Marye's
Heights. It was the last time he ever saw it, for a cannon-ball from that
battery tore him to pieces.

For many years Mr. Reuben Thom was the postmaster of the town. He was also
senior warden of Saint George's Church. Scarcely five feet in stature,
he was of heroic nature. Once when the Episcopal Convention was assembled
in Saint George's, a dangerous crack was discovered in the gallery of the
church, and great apprehension prevailed as to the safety of the building.
The senior warden indignantly derided these fears, and, when the convention
opened, the amazed congregation saw their warden seated in the gallery, his
arms folded, and his back propping the dangerous crack.

He was a man of strictest integrity and absolute sobriety, and was never
known to take a drop of strong drink; but his ruddy face was adorned by a
prominent nose of flaming and suspicious redness. One day, while admonishing
the mail-carrier of King George County because of his tippling propensities,
he was silenced by being requested to look at his own nose before he ventured
to talk to other people about drinking.

During the bombardment of the town, the old man, then an octogenarian, had
his arm-chair moved out into the garden, the nearest place to the cannon of
the enemy, and there he sat throughout the day, encouraging by word and
example the terrified people of his flock.

It was in 1826 that General Lafayette visited our town,
and was received and entertained with great enthusiasm as he passed on his
way to Yorktown. The Fredericksburg Guards escorted him to his destination. 1
One of my earliest recollections is of a pair of white morocco shoes with
a portrait of General Lafayette on the instep. This country owes more to
that truly noble Frenchman than we ever think of now, and France always
found him, in every crisis, a brave and faithful patriot.

While General Lafayette was in Fredericksburg, one of his old soldiers of
the Revolution came to town to pay his respects to his former commander.
He had a profound conviction of the activity and prevalence of pickpockets,
and from the time he entered the streets of the city kept his hand upon
his watch. Finally he succeeded, after passing through the crowd, in reaching
his general. In his enthusiasm at being greeted so warmly by the great
marquis, he seized, with both hands, Lafayette's friendly grasp, and as he
turned away clapped his hand again upon his watch pocket, but, alas, it
was empty.

Later on I have seen John Randolph's coach with four thoroughbreds, and
John and Jubah in attendance, draw up at the Farmers' Hotel; and in the
summer season ten coaches at once would drive from that old tavern to the
White Sulphur. It was said that one team of thoroughbred sorrels made
Chancellor's Tavern, ten miles away, in one hour.

Six miles below Fredericksburg on Massaponox Creek was New Post, the home
of General Alexander Spottswood. Great intimacy was cherished between the
families of Brooke of Smithfield and Spottswood. Young
1. Colonel Charles Pollard, the great railroad benefactor of Alabama, and
most distinguished of all her great citizens for his munificent, pure, and
exalted life, was a lieutenant of the escort of General Lafayette on his
famous excursion to Yorktown.
Francis Taliaferro Brooke married a daughter of General
Spottswood, and their home at Saint Julian, just a mile away,
was for many years one of the most charming in the State.

Saint Julian, as I remember it, was one of the most delightful
of the many country homes of that fair region. It was seven
miles below Fredericksburg, on the right of the main stage road
to Richmond, situated in a lovely valley embowered in fine old
shade trees, and surrounded by acres of choice fruits and
flowers. The vegetable garden was closely guarded by a cedar
hedge which a cat could hardly penetrate, while away to the left
stretched a meadow bordered by a clear running brook, a
tributary of the Massaponox, along which my brother and I,
escorted by old John, the carriage driver, used to hunt, with old
Orion, a black and white pointer, to help us. A generation later
Jackson's infantry and Pelham's guns thundered along that
stream until its waters ran red with human blood.

Here my uncle, Frank Brooke, made his home for many
years, and my brother and I were ever most welcome guests.
Aunt Brooke was a Miss Mary Carter, a beauty of Blenheim, in
Albemarle County, and was the most exquisite of Virginia
hostesses. Rarely have I enjoyed a table so dainty as hers, with
its old blue India china, and handsome silver and napery. Every
dish had been the especial care of old Phyllis, the best cook on
the Rappahannock. The walls of the parlor were covered by
old-fashioned landscape paper, depicting the adventures and death
of Captain Cook. Over the mantel hung a portrait of my great-grandfather,
Mr. Richard Brooke, in his scarlet coat, buff waistcoat, and lace ruffles,
and over the door the portrait of the beautiful Miss Fannie Carter, a famous
belle of her day, who married Rosier
Dulany, kinsman of the Colonel Dick Dulany, so well known
and loved in Virginia, and so distinguished in the army of
northern Virginia for his lofty bearing, gentle nature, and daring
courage.

But the charm of Saint Julian was our cousin Helen. Lovely
in person and in character, she was the belle of the county, and
of Richmond too. She was a little older than I, and her refined,
high-bred nature made her my divinity, and she knew it too.
Aunt Brooke had a niece, Mary Francis Thompson, whom she
adopted as a chosen companion for Helen. She was a sweet,
gentle girl, and my brother and she were sweethearts, and when
last at Saint Julian on a furlough from the army, I saw on the
bark of an aspen tree the big heart caned by my brother, with
her initials and his own within it. They had both been dead
many years then. When the enemy came to Saint Julian the old
family portraits were all carried to Fredericksburg, and stored in
the post-office in the care of Mr. Reuben Thom. In the
bombardment of the town they were destroyed.

They were a very happy and united family, those Brookes of
Saint Julian. In his youth Uncle Frank used to hunt foxes with
General Spottswood, and it was after he came home from the
Revolutionary War, where he had served on General Greene's
staff, that he married Mary Spottswood. He had been her
neighbor and lover all his boyhood. After her death, he married
Mary Carter. He became a great lawyer, and was for more than
forty years on the Supreme Bench, - the Court of Appeals of
Virginia. Henry Clay read law in his office, and on his way to
Congress used to stop at Saint Julian. Judge Brooke lived to be
more than eighty years of age. He lies by his wife in the little
graveyard on the hill above their home. The family are all
scattered now or dead,
and the dear old place has passed into other hands. It has
become the property of Mr. Boulware, a very well known and
respected Virginian. It is a comfort to me that gentle people are
there, for it is the dearest place in all my boyhood's memories.

Johnson Barbour, son of our distinguished governor, was one
of the most brilliant youths of his day, as he has been for many
years the highest illustration of our cultured country gentleman.
When about sixteen years of age he was a visitor in our home in
Fredericksburg. He had been to England with his father when he
was our Minister to the Court of St. James, and the versatility
and readiness of his talk made a great impression upon all of us,
especially upon myself, who felt his superiority to any boy I
had ever seen. We were bedfellows during his visit, and one night
I, wakeful and much impressed by Johnson's cleverness during
the evening, requested him to examine me on matters of general
information. He complied, and sleepily inquired how many
children Queen Elizabeth had. I gave it up, and the catechism
ended, for Johnson rolled over and went to sleep.

I have recorded these personal anecdotes to illustrate the
character of the community in which our people were reared. It
was a blessed and happy land in my boyhood and youth. All of
the rich bottom lands of the Rappahannock were occupied by
prosperous planters, whose ample estates, with their spacious
residences, had descended for generations from father to son.
Many of these were granted by the Crown of England, but very
few are now held under the original grants. The repeal of the law
of entail, brought about by Mr. Jefferson, was so recent, that in
some families the homes were inherited by the sons, while the
daughters were otherwise provided for. These homes were then
the abode of very great
comfort and dignity; a generous and elegant hospitality was
universal. The house servants were long and carefully trained in
their respective duties, and oftentimes remained for generations
in the same families. My children's nurse, “Mammy Lucy,”
and her progenitors, had been in the family of my father-in-law
for five generations, and remained till the Emancipation
Proclamation. The usual retinue of the establishment at
“Cleveland,” my wife's home, was fifteen servants or more when
the house was full of company; and as many as thirty or more
of the family and friends daily dined there together for weeks
and months at a time.

In Fredericksburg and its near vicinity lived many Scotch
families. Every historic name of Scotland is represented among
them, and a more worthy class of people can nowhere be found.
Their ancestors came over in colonial days, and, curiously
enough, became Episcopalians, as were all the population of
that region in those days. The history and traditions of the
people made them proud, and the religious and literary
influences were of a high order. The old College of William and
Mary was the Alma Mater of these colonial gentry, while the
classical academies of Hanson, and Lawrence, and the Colemans
prepared our youth for their higher education there. Following
the English system, the study of the classics was the chief aim
of these schools. Modern languages were not taught in them,
nor mathematics to any valuable extent.

CHAPTER II

Captain John Minor Maury's Active and Adventurous Life - Personal Traits of
Matthew Fontaine Maury - His Character and his Scientific Achievements -
At the University of Virginia - Shakespeare Caldwell's Career - A Cadet at
West Point - Incidents of the Life there - Anecdotes of Grant, McClellan,
Jackson, and Others

IN 1824 my father, Captain John Minor Maury,
while serving as flag captain of Commodore David
Porter's fleet against the pirates of the West Indies, died
in the twenty-eighth year of his age. He had been an
officer of the Navy since his thirteenth year, and had led a
most active and adventurous life; and at the time of his
death he was the highest ranking officer of his age in the
service. Some years previously he sailed with Captain
William Lewis as first officer of a ship bound for China.
They had both obtained furloughs for this voyage.
Maury, with six men, was left on the island of Nokaheeva
to collect sandal-wood and other valuable articles of trade
against the return of the ship.

The war with England broke out, and Captain Lewis
was blockaded in a Chinese port. Maury and his men were
beset by the natives of one part of the island, though
befriended by the chief of that portion where ships were
accustomed to land, and at last all of the party save
Maury and a sailor named Baker were killed by the
savages. These two constructed a place of refuge in the
tops of four cocoanut trees which grew close
enough together for them to make a room as large as a
frigate's maintop. A rope ladder was their means of
access. Here they were one day, when their eyes were
brightened by the sight of a frigate bearing the American
flag. It proved to be the Essex, Captain David Porter
commanding, which had touched at the island for fresh
water. Captain Porter had with him a very fast British ship
which he had just captured. He named her the Essex
Junior, and armed her as his consort, placing Lieutenant
Downs in command, with Maury as first lieutenant. After
refitting they sailed away to Valparaiso, where the British
ships Cherub and Phoebe, under Captain Hilliard, fought
and captured them.

Maury's next service was with McDonough in the
battle of Lake Champlain, whence he wrote to a friend in
Fredericksburg: “We have gained a glorious victory. I
hope the most important result of it will be to confirm the
wavering allegiance of New York and Vermont to the
Union. They have been threatening to secede unless
peace be made with England on any terms!” This was in 1815.

About 1822, Porter organized his fleet for the extinction
of the pirates of the West Indies. He was allowed to
select his officers, and his first choice was of John Minor
Maury to be his flag captain. After serving with
distinction on that expedition, he died of yellow fever on
his homeward voyage, and was buried almost within
sight of Norfolk harbor, where his young wife and two
little children were anxiously awaiting his coming.

After my father's death his younger brother, Matthew
Fontaine Maury, became practically the guardian of my
brother, William Lewis Maury, and myself. My brother
died at the age of twenty, of heart disease, a victim to the
barbarous medical practice of the day.
He was a very handsome, attractive young fellow, and a
great favorite in society. The doctors subjected him to the
“moxa,” a cruel invention of that time. A spot as
large as a half dollar was burned into the flesh over his
heart. He was bled frequently. It was proposed to bleed
him periodically. For several years he ate no meat, and for
the last year of his life was kept in bed. Our uncle
protested vainly against this practice, which he realized
was killing my brother, but the highest medical authorities
of the day upheld this system of depletion. At last, after
ever increasing torture, he was released from a life which
had dawned full of brightness and promise for him, and
had become one of continued suffering.

After my brother's death my uncle's interest centred in
me, and no son ever had a more tender and sympathetic
father than I. As long as he lived this mutual confidence
and affection existed unimpaired. He was the most lovable
man I ever knew, and he won the confidence of all who
came within his gentle influence. He ever used cordial
praise and approbation as an incentive to endeavor, and
if admonition were needed, he gave it in a manner which
left no sting. Oftentimes a playful jest would serve the
purpose of his correction. From my earliest boyhood I
went to him for counsel and for comfort in all my troubles,
and always left him with renewed purpose and self-respect.
When I came to him from West Point he said to
me, “Well, Dab, how did you come out?”

“Very poorly, Uncle Matt. I graduated thirty-fifth.”

He looked sorry he had asked me, but suddenly taking
heart he inquired, “How many were in the class?”

“There were sixty of us.”

“That was first-rate. You beat me all hollow. I
was twenty-seventh, and there were only forty in my
class.”

This was truly encouraging. He had a pleasant greeting
for every one, but was especially kindly in his way of
treating the mechanics and workmen with whom his
business brought him in contact. He made them feel he
was learning from them, while he never failed to leave
with them something instructive about their own branch
of work. He was thus learning and teaching all of his time.

In his youth he read Scott and other English classics,
and was very fond of Shakespeare, and all his life he read
and studied the Bible. I do not think he ever read any
novels after he began to develop the great thoughts with
which his brain was teeming. His power of concentration
was wonderful. Writing upon the subject in which he was
interested, in the midst of his family, he would pause, pen
in hand, to laugh at some jest or say a word apropos of the
question under discussion, and return in an instant to his
work. He wrote his “Navigation” and many strong papers
on Naval Reform, which first attracted attention to him,
before he was thirty years old. Mr. Calhoun said of him,
“Maury is a man of great thoughts”; and Mr. Tyler was
urged and desired to make him Secretary of the Navy.

In 1853-54 I was spending the winter in Philadelphia,
when he wrote to me to go and see Mr. Biddle, who had
charge of the annual report of the National Observatory,
and deliver to him a message relative to it. After our
business was ended, Mr. Biddle said to me: “This uncle
of yours is a strange man. Here he is publishing, as an
official report, the materials for the most valuable and
interesting book of science ever produced.
You may tell him from me, that if he does not utilize it, he will
have the chagrin of seeing some Yankee bookmaker steal his
thunder and reap a fortune from it.”

I sat down in Mr. Biddle's office and wrote to him. He replied
by next mail that he would take Biddle's advice, and the
“Physical Geography of the Sea” was soon published by the
Harpers. It created a worldwide interest, and before the war
broke out eleven editions had been issued. He used to say to
me, “Dab, that is your book.”

At the outbreak of the war, he was at the height of his great
scientific career, in the most desirable position possible for the
exercise of his talents. But he did not hesitate a moment as to
his action, but promptly gave up all of his prospects in life for
his people's sake, and calmly faced the uncertainties and
anxieties of a new career. When his decision became known, the
Emperor of Russia, and a little later the Emperor of France,
invited him in the most generous terms to come to them and
pursue in tranquillity, and in luxurious comfort and ease, those
investigations which were for the benefit of all mankind, until
peace should once again enable him to resume them at home. He
replied, gratefully acknowledging the invitations, but stating that
his presence might be of service to his own people, and in
their hour of need he could not desert them.

At the age of seventeen I entered the University of
Virginia, and enjoyed the life of freedom from home
surveillance, and the great pleasure of association with men
well reared and educated, matured in their purposes, and
studying earnestly in the fine professional schools which
then, as now, were recognized as among the highest in the
country. Johnson Barbour, Randolph Tucker, Robert
Withers, John S. Barbour, Stage Davis,
Winter Davis, Hunter Marshall, George Randolph, Confederate
Secretary of War, Honorable Volney E. Howard, R. L. Dabney,
and many another who made his mark in life and has gone over
the river, were there then.

After leaving the University, where I was in the junior law
class, I continued the pursuit of that most exacting study in
Fredericksburg. There were twenty-six of us in the class of that
year, and our instructor was the venerable and learned Judge
Lomax, distinguished alike for his legal attainments and the
courteous dignity of his bearing. I fear he realized from the first
that I would not prove a bright and shining light in my adopted
profession, for he used always to select the easiest questions
and present them to me for solution. One day he inquired of
me, “Mr. Maury, does ignorance of the law justify the
commission of an offense?”

“Certainly, sir,” I promptly replied. I noticed that he looked
at me with a kind of hopeless forbearance, and as I had by that
time begun to have grave misgivings of my own as to my legal
qualifications, I went to him and told him that I had decided not
to pursue further so inexorable and unjust a profession as that
of law.

Of all our class, “Shake” Caldwell was facile princeps in his
studies, as he was our “glass of fashion and mould of form.” He
was the son of Mr. James Caldwell of New Orleans, and the
beautiful Widow Wormley of Fredericksburg. They were near
neighbors of ours, and my relations with Shakespeare were
warm and affectionate till the day of his death. He was one of
the handsomest and most elegant gentlemen I have ever known,
as he was one of the ablest men of his day. He was so
handsome, so charming, so witty, that many people credited
him with being a society man only; but, while brilliant in social
life, he was steadfast and strong in
his affections and duties, with a great capacity for
business, so that when he died he was probably the
richest man in Virginia, and he used his great wealth as a
trust confided to him for the good of his people.

After we parted, - I to go to West Point, and he to seek
his fortune, - I knew nothing of his career for six years
until he told me of it himself. He went to Mobile to enter
upon the practice of law. After a year of almost hopeless
waiting for business, his father, who had by that time
successfully established the gas works of New Orleans,
resolved to undertake similar works in Mobile, and wrote
to his son that if he would take charge of the new
enterprise, he would give him $750 per annum, which was
more than his law practice brought him. After two years of
successful management in Mobile, Mr. James Caldwell
decided to establish gas works in Cincinnati, and offered
Shakespeare the management of these at $2000 per annum.
This property so increased in value in a few years that Mr.
Caldwell, enriched by the business in Mobile and New
Orleans, transferred to his son, for his sister and himself,
all of his interests in Cincinnati. Soon after this, having
acquired a handsome estate, Shakespeare became
attached to a brilliant young girl of Louisville, one of the
illustrious Breckinridge family. She was an orphan and an
heiress, and had many suitors. His own property was
worth about half a million. Their happy married life was
only ended by her early death. In 1874 his sister, who had
meanwhile become Mrs. Dean, died, and save for a few
minor legacies left him her entire fortune, and at his own
death his estate was estimated at $ 3,000,000.

When she was young, Shakespeare's sister numbered
among her suitors Bob Waring, a member of a wealthy
family living in the Northern Neck. As Bob was not very
well equipped in his upper story, he was put to work in a
dry-goods store in Fredericksburg, where he speedily lost
his heart to Sophy Caldwell. About this time Ole Bull
came to town to make some music for us, and Bob
decided to invite his lady love to enjoy the concert in his
company; so he presented himself before her with a
request that she would go with him “to hear the old
gentleman.” She was at first quite at a loss to apprehend
his meaning, but finally discovered, from his blushes and
hesitating utterances, that he did not consider it proper to
pronounce in her divine presence the name of the great
virtuoso! Bob and his lady love and the fiddler have gone
long ago where I hope they are each enjoying eternal
harmonies.

About 1872, Shakespeare established in Louisville an
asylum for indigent men who were cared for, without
regard to religious creed, by the Little Sisters of the Poor.

In 1875 he came to Richmond, to undertake and organize
a similar institution there for the poor of Richmond and
Fredericksburg. The endowment of $250,000 was to be under
the administration of the Bishop of Richmond, now
Cardinal Gibbons. On the day that the Virginia Legislature
granted the charter, he was stricken with paralysis, but he
soon recovered his mental faculties, and earnestly desired
to complete the good work he had so much at heart. But
Bishop Gibbons would not permit him to be troubled with
business under such circumstances. After two or three
months he suffered a relapse, and died in New York city
in his fifty-fourth year. He left his great estate to his two
daughters, and his generous intentions to his church
have been carried out by one of them, who has richly
endowed the Catholic University now being erected at
Washington.

On relinquishing my arduous pursuit of legal learning, I
left Fredericksburg to enter West Point, where I was
immured for four years, the only unhappy years of a very
happy life, made happy by the love of the truest people,
whose interest in me has followed me until this day. One
hundred and sixty-four boys entered the class with me, of
whom few had received either social or educational
advantages of a very high order. McClellan was a notable
exception to this, being under sixteen years of age when
he entered the Academy. He went at once to the head of
the class and remained there until the end, enjoying the
while the affection and respect of all.

After six months came the first examination, which
pronounced a score or more “deficient,” leaving Jackson
at the foot of the class and McClellan at the head.
Jackson was then in his nineteenth year, and was
awkward and uncultured in manner and appearance, but
there was an earnest purpose in his aspect which
impressed all who saw him. Birket Fry, A. P. Hill, and I
were standing together when he entered the South
Barracks under charge of a cadet sergeant. He was clad in
gray homespun, and wore a coarse felt hat, such as
wagoners or constables - as he had been - usually wore,
and bore a pair of weather-stained saddle-bags across his
shoulders. There was about him so sturdy an expression
of purpose that I remarked, “That fellow looks as if he
had come to stay.” As the sergeant returned from
installing him in his quarters, we asked who the new cadet
was. He replied, “Cadet Jackson, of Virginia.” That was
enough for me, and I went at once to show him such
interest and kindness as would have gratified others
under the circumstances. But Jackson received me so
coldly that I regretted my friendly
overtures, and rejoined my companions, rebuffed and
discomfited.

His steady purpose to succeed and to do his duty soon
won the respect of all, and his teachers and comrades
alike honored his efforts and wished him God-speed. His
barrack room was small and bare and cold. Every night
just before taps he would pile his grate high with
anthracite coal, so that by the time the lamps were out, a
ruddy glow came from his fire, by which, prone upon the
bare floor, he would “bone” his lesson for the next day,
until it was literally burned into his brain. The result of
this honest purpose was that from one examination to the
next he continually rose in his class till he reached the first
section, and we used to say, “If we stay here another
year, old Jack will be head of the class.”

“In medio tutissimus” was my motto, and the most
valued relic of my many years' study of the humanities;
for it kept me safe from disgrace in the examinations,
except in those especial accomplishments of the soldier,
in all of which I was facile princeps. Old Jack was very
clumsy in his horsemanship and with his sword, and we
were painfully anxious as we watched him leaping the bar
and cutting at heads. He would do it, but at the risk of his
life. It is to be regretted that any of his biographers
should claim for him skill and grace as a horseman, when
they have with truth so much of real greatness to tell of
him.

In the corps of cadets of that time were many who have
become famous beside Jackson and McClellan. There
was Grant, a very good and kindly fellow whom
everybody liked. He was proficient in mathematics, but
did not try to excel at anything except horsemanship. In
the riding-school he was very daring. When
his turn came to leap the bar, he would make the
dragoons lift it from the trestles and raise it as high as
their heads, when he would drive his horse over it,
clearing at least six feet.

Hancock and Franklin were with us too, and although
association of the cadets of one class with those of
another was rare, I was much with them, and was intimate
with Barnard Bee, that noble South Carolinian who, upon
the fatal field on which he bravely fell, gave the name of
“Stonewall” Jackson to our hero.

Bee was one of the most admirable young soldiers of
that day. Six feet in stature, he was every inch a soldier,
and as gentle as he was brave. He was distinguished
always for his delicate consideration for others, as for his
manly and noble bearing in personal danger. He served
with distinction in the Mexican War, and upon the far
western frontier, to fall at Manassas in the very moment
of our first victory there. About the close of Bee's second
year at the Academy, he was court-martialed for some
infraction of the regulations, and was meanly sentenced
to remain one day behind his classmates, who went off for
the biennial furlough. He had the sympathy of all of us in
this peculiar punishment, which struck at him through his
affections, and I especially strove to cheer and console
him. The class notified Bee that as the steamboat passed
Gee's Point he must be there, for they would throw over to
him a bottle of cocktail to comfort him in his loneliness.
Bee liked cocktail, but couldn't swim. I, having promised
my mother not to drink while at the Academy, swam for
that bottle for love of Bee. For more than an hour I went
up and down the Hudson and nearly across it, in vain
search for it. It probably broke from its buoy and went
down. Poor Bee was in sorry luck that day.

After I had been at West Point a year, my uncle, seeing
how my mother pined for me, and being in high favor with
the Administration, procured for me a three weeks' leave
of absence; I joined my mother at the Observatory, and
we were all very happy there together. We had then, for
commandant, a huge Tennesseean, whose chief aim
seemed to be to keep the cadets' hair cropped close.
When I presented myself before him on my return from
this leave of absence, he looked at me disapprovingly,
and said, “Go and get your hair cut, sir, and report to
me.” Joe, our barber, could cut hair quicker and shorter
than any living man. I stepped into his tent, and he ran his
shears around my head, nearly scalping me. In two or
three minutes I was back and stood attention.

“Well, sir,” said the commandant, “what's the matter
now?”

“You ordered me to have my hair cut and report to
you, sir.”

“Ah! That's very well indeed, sir.”

That evening, at dress parade, I was published a
corporal.

The course of study of the second class at West Point
was the most difficult. Bartlett's “Optics” was a fearful
book, and the most formidable discussion in it was that
called “optical images.” It was a general bugbear to the
class; and only the men of the first section were expected
to be able to demonstrate it. The January examinations
were close at hand, and all of the men below me had been
found deficient save the “immortal section.” I was
thoroughly aroused, and being pretty good at a spurt, I
made myself master of the course. The “optical images”
received my especial attention, for if that were well
demonstrated I should be safe. The
week before the examinations Professor Bartlett came into
our section, and Lieutenant Deshon of the Ordnance
Corps, who was our instructor, ordered, “Mr. Maury will
go to the board, and demonstrate the ‘optical images.’ ”

It was a complete success, a perfect demonstration.
Professor Bartlett and Deshon were both satisfied, and I
got “max ” on that fortunate effort of mine, and went up
seventeen files in my standing. My classmates, who
seemed as delighted as I was, said as the section was
dismissed, “Peri, you are safe.” I had been called “Peri”
since my first arrival at the Academy, in consequence of
my inability to accomplish anything in the musical line
save that plaintive ditty commencing, “Farewell, farewell
to thee, Araby's daughter.” I may as well confess that it
constitutes my sole repertory unto this day.

Deshon was a very amiable and able man. After the
Mexican War we were stationed together at the Academy.
He “got off” on religion, and in our rides together used
to try to convince me of the truth of his new-found
convictions as to transubstantiation, etc. I told him he
would end by being a Jesuit, and so he did, having long
ago become a member of the great Church of Rome. A
purer Christian never lived than he.

CHAPTER III

Graduated at West Point and off for the Mexican War - Operations of the
Campaign under General Scott and General Taylor - Anecdotes of these
Commanders - Other Officers who became Eminent in the Civil War - The
Capture of Vera Cruz - Wounded at Cerro Gordo - In the Hospital - The
Journey to Jalapa

IN June, 1846, I was graduated, and was attached as second
lieutenant to the Mounted Rifles, now the Third Cavalry.
General Taylor's victories of the 8th and 9th of May had
aroused the enthusiasm of our country, and we listened
with intense interest to the letters and reports which came
pouring in from that army, - how, when Charley May
came trotting up with his squadron of dragoons to
capture the Mexican guns, young Randolph Ridgely cried
out from his battery, “Hold on a minute, Charley, till I
draw their fire”; and how young Kirby Smith, known as
Seminole Smith, leaped astride of a Mexican cannon as he
sabred the gunners. These and scores of similar incidents
we heard as we were girding ourselves to join these
glorious fellows. It was then that the Chief of Artillery at
West Point, Captain Keyes, came to me and urged me to
accept the position of Instructor of Artillery during the
ensuing summer encampment. The offer, though kindly
pressed, was as firmly declined, as it might cause delay in
reaching the scene of active preparations, and I hastened
home to make my farewell visit to my mother.

Orders came shortly for me to go to Baltimore and report to
Captain Stevens Mason, commanding a squadron of Mounted
Rifles about to sail in the brig Soldana for the army of General
Taylor on the Rio Grande. There were eight commissioned
officers and one hundred and sixty men who embarked in this
unseaworthy craft of about two hundred tons. All are gone now
save the sad old writer of these lines. As we sailed down
Chesapeake Bay a gale arose, which compelled all shipping,
numbering probably a hundred sail, to harbor in Hampton
Roads. The skipper of the Soldana was Captain Stubbs, of
Maine, well named. Full of the importance of his trust, his
ambition moved him to make sail for Mexico before the gale was
over. The Soldana was the first and only vessel to leave the
Roads for the heaving Atlantic on this September morning, and
about two A. M. of that same night she rolled her rotten mainmast
out and floated a wretched wreck.

Her best hope seemed to make for Charleston, or some other
port, and repair damages; but Stubbs went to work with great
energy, and rigged up a jury mast, and on the thirty-second day
of her voyage, after many storms and calms, having been long
reported “lost with all hands,” we landed at Point Isabel, every
man of us safe and well. The news of Taylor's capture of
Monterey had just come in, and the hope of participating in that
action, which had induced this squadron of the Rifles to move
without waiting for horses, was disappointed.

The Rifles moved on up the Rio Grande to Camargo, whence
our colonel, Persifer Smith, then in Monterey, and a soldier of
reputation, had us ordered to Monterey as escort to some siege
pieces which, under the personal efforts of young Stonewall
Jackson, were moving to that city. He worked at them in the
muddy roads as he
used to do at West Point, and ever did in his great career, and
they had to move along. In Monterey were the heroes of the
campaign, and some of the War of 1812 and of many an Indian
fight.

General Zachary Taylor, a simple and unpretending
gentleman, may have been Jackson's model; for he had more of
the silent, rapid, impetuous methods, which Jackson practiced
later on, than any American general save Forrest.

Monterey was a pleasant place for the month or two of our
stay there. Grant was then Quartermaster of the Fourth
Infantry. I had been badly wounded while hunting near
Camargo, so as to disable me from duty while in Monterey, and
Grant being also, by the duties of his office, free to go when and
where he pleased, we were much together and enjoyed the
association. Grant was a thoroughly kind and manly young
fellow, with no bad habits, and was respected and liked by his
brother officers, especially by those of his own regiment.

In the course of a few weeks news came that General Scott
had arrived in the country, and assumed command of the army;
that he had changed the line of operations; and that General
Taylor's forces would in large part be drawn off to Scott. This
caused much talk among us, for Taylor had won the unbounded
confidence and love of all of us, while Scott was sneered at as
“Old Fuss and Feathers.” The expectation was that we should
forthwith have an order to trim our hair and beards according to
the regulations of the army. With us was General David
Emanuel Twiggs, a grand-looking old man, six feet two inches in
stature, with long, flowing white hair, and a beard which hung
over his broad breast like Aaron's. As I passed his tent one
morning early, he was outside of it taking a sponge bath,
stripped to the waist.
I had never seen a grander subject for an artist's study. A few
days after I saw him again, shorn of his hoary locks, hair and
beard close cropped, in anticipation of orders which were never
issued; for Scott addressed himself to the serious work of the
Mexican campaign, which has ranked him so high among the
world's great captains.

General Taylor was ordered to move down to Victoria with
his available forces, where Scott would meet him. Our route lay
along the base of the Sierra Madre Mountains, amid beautiful
scenery and through orange groves and fields of sugar-cane, and
was crossed by clear, cool mountain streams, in which we
bathed after our long and dusty marches. The country people
supplied us with poultry, vegetables, and fruit, and we greatly
enjoyed our march. At Victoria we did not meet General Scott,
but were joined by troops from Camargo. Among those who
returned with General Taylor towards Monterey were Colonel
Jeff Davis and his famous regiment of Mississippi Rifles, who,
two months later, turned the tide of battle in Taylor's famous
victory at Buena Vista. With them, too, went Bragg's battery. In
that battery I met George H. Thomas, an enthusiastic Virginian
then and till the very moment, many years later, when he drew
his sword against our dear old State. Attached to the battery
also was Lieutenant Bob Wheat, afterwards a distinguished
soldier. Wheat has been somewhat lightly spoken of as an
adventurer in wars, but there was earnest feeling in him. In all
his long and dangerous services he bore in his bosom the little
prayer-book his mother gave him when he first left home, and
on the morning of his last battle (I believe he fell in the fierce
fight at Gaines Mill), when he had formed his battalion he said,
“Boys, before we move into this fight I will read you something
from
this little book.” He was listened to with great feeling, and a
few hours later he fell dead in the very prime of his career.

We were quiet for some days at Victoria, where no event of
interest disturbed us save the stealing of General Taylor's horse,
“Old Whitey.” Whereupon the general promptly arrested the
Alcalde of the town as hostage for the safe and early restitution
of “Old Whitey,” who was restored next day. Just previous to
this Charley May had been sent with his squadron to explore a
certain route through the mountains. He rejoined us at Victoria,
reporting that he had been beset in a wild gorge by the
Mexicans, who fired upon them from the cliffs, and rolled great
rocks down on them. He had lost his rear guard under
Lieutenant Sturgis, whom he arrested, and who was court-
martialed at Victoria. Bragg volunteered to act as counsel for
Sturgis, who was entirely acquitted, and came out of the affair
with more credit than any one concerned in it. We young
fellows, as well as the old ones, were all for Sturgis, who seemed
to have been made a scapegoat of.

It was during this march that one of our young officers,
Richie, just from West Point, was lassoed and murdered while
passing through a Mexican village. We all liked him, and ample
vengeance befell that village.

At Tampico we met General Scott and some thousands of
troops assembling for the descent upon Vera Cruz. In all there
were over 14,000, of whom but few were veterans. All had flint-lock
muskets save the Rifles and some artillery companies.

The plains about Tampico afforded ample ground for drill,
and here we had, for the first time, drilling by General Scott in
the evolutions of the line. As soon as all the transports had
arrived with troops and equipments,
our whole force sailed for the rendezvous off Lobos Island,
whence we sailed for Vera Cruz. More than a hundred men-of-war
and transports made up the fleet, which landed at the island
of Sacrificios for the attack upon the city. Bee and I were in the
same transport, and on the day before the debarkation we paid a
visit to a friend of Bee's, the captain of a gunboat. When I was
introduced to him he said: “Are you a son of Captain John
Minor Maury? Captain Tatnell, who has just left me, declared
him to be the finest officer in the United States Navy.” To hear
this on the eve of my first battle filled me with emotion, and
with the desire to be worthy of such a father, and with honest
pride that the tribute should be paid in the presence of so noble
a friend as Bee.

Our army landed at Vera Cruz, 14,000 strong, in four divisions.
The landing was made in whale-boats rowed by the sailors of
the fleet. In each boat were from fifty to sixty soldiers, and it
was a glorious sight to see the first division, under General
Worth, move off at 2 P.M. at the signal from the flag-ship. The
fifty great barges kept in line, until near the shore, when General
Worth himself led the way to make the landing first of all, and
being in a fine gig he accomplished this, and was the first man of
the army to plant the American flag upon that shore of Mexico.
The Mexicans made no resistance, and the boats rapidly
returned for the second division, under Twiggs, which was as
quietly transported to the shore. Then the volunteers came, and
soon after dark Scott had his whole army in battle order about
three miles from Vera Cruz.

Early next morning we moved around the city till we came to
the great national road, built by the Spaniards, from Vera Cruz
to the city of Mexico. The Mounted
Rifles led in this investment, and C Company was in front when
we came out upon the great Camino del Rey, over which at that
moment a train of mules, laden with wine and escorted by a
troop of Mexicans, was passing. We debouched into the road
and fired a few shots at the Mexican dragoons, who fled back to
Vera Cruz, firing at us over their shoulders as they ran. When
our work for that day was done, we had completed the
investment of Vera Cruz. We were very hungry and thirsty. So
our Texas guide lassoed a fat beef, a keg of sherry was broached,
and we bivouacked upon the northern beach of Vera Cruz, just
beyond cannon range of the city, and remained there until, after
two or three weeks' bombardment, Vera Cruz surrendered.

While lying there our scouts brought in word that a
considerable body of Mexican guerillas had closed up to a bridge
two or three miles in our rear. C Company was ordered to go
and look after them. We found several hundred of them. They
demanded our surrender, and were so defiant and aggressive that
we sent a runner back to camp to report the situation.
Meantime, we took up a defensive position till our express
resumed, guiding General Smith and five or six companies of the
Rifles. Our company was in advance, and we moved to the
attack in company front, occupying the whole breadth of the
road. The Mexicans had formed and were awaiting us in
ambuscade, and fired a volley at us. They were not thirty yards
distant, yet not one of our men was touched. We sprang
forward, charged and routed them, chased them half a mile, and
marched back in great delight over our first affair. Sergeant
Harris, of Winchester, Virginia, was the only man seriously
wounded. I won my first compliment in special orders for good
conduct.

While we were still bombarding Vera Cruz the news of
General Taylor's victory over Santa Anna's army at Buena
Vista was received. General Scott published it to the army,
congratulating us “upon this great victory of the successful
General Taylor.” It was Taylor's fourth decisive victory since
May, and was fought with only 4500 men against 23,000. There
is every reason to believe that, had not his forces been diverted
to Scott, Taylor would have captured the city of Mexico at as
early a date as the latter.

After Santa Anna's defeat at Buena Vista, a serious revolt
was organized against him in the city of Mexico. He moved at
once to the capital, restored order, and marched up rapidly with
his army to relieve the siege of Vera Cruz. Before his arrival
Vera Cruz had fallen, and Scott was prepared to advance upon
the city of Mexico.

When the white flag was shown by Vera Cruz we were
overjoyed and greatly comforted, for we had been nearly three
weeks in the sand hills without change of raiment, our
opportunities for bathing were very limited, and the fleas
swarmed over us. I have never seen anything like those Vera
Cruz fleas. If one were to stand ten minutes in the sand, the
fleas would fall upon him in hundreds. How they live in that
dry sand no one knows. They don't live very high, for they are
ever ready for a change of diet. The engineer officers, G. W.
Smith, and McClellan, slept in canvas bags drawn tight about
their necks, having previously greased themselves all over with
salt pork. Perhaps the fleas did not partake of them, but they
made up for it by regaling themselves on us of the line who
had no canvas bags.

At the sight of the white flag all was gaiety along our lines;
work and anxiety gave place to pride and comfort. Our
servants brought us fresh clothes from the fleet, and never
had we enjoyed them more. Commissioners were
appointed to arrange terms of surrender, and General Scott
selected Captains Joseph E. Johnston and Robert E. Lee to
represent us, and nobly they did so. This selection gave great
satisfaction throughout the army. In rich uniforms, superbly
mounted, they were the most soldierly, as they were the ablest,
men in the army. We young Virginians were proud that day to
see them, and to know that our two victorious armies were led
by two great Virginia generals.

We did not linger long at Vera Cruz, for Scott was eager to
press on and capture the capital, and Santa Anna was already
preparing to dispute his passage at Cerro Gordo, a strong
position three or four days from us. Santa Anna first took
position a few days' march from Vera Cruz, near Plan del Rio, on
the great national road. Here he entrenched himself, and here we
attacked him on the 17th of April, 1847. The Rifles marched at the
head of the army, and early in the evening, as we were lying by
the side of the road, word came from Lieutenant Gardner, who
had been sent up with an infantry picket, that the enemy was
advancing to attack us. “Send up the Rifles!” shouted General
Harney, and up we moved, and in a few minutes were warmly
engaged with the Mexican advance. We drove them steadily back
to their fortifications on the high telegraph hill. Our line was
halted in the edge of the timber which covered the hill we had just
occupied. The Mexican skirmishers rallied and formed in line of
battle, just below their fortifications on the opposite hill, whence
they kept up a dropping fire upon any of our men who showed
themselves. Santa Anna himself, in citizen's dress and mounted
on a superb gray horse, was riding about the field, ordering the
movements of the troops. He was an able general and a game
soldier. Several of my men fired
at him, but at such long range as forbade accurate shooting. We
were in the undergrowth which crowned the hill, and from here I
observed a little body of Rifles, who under Lieutenant Gibbs,
had ensconced themselves in a sheltered spot rather nearer to
the enemy than our own, and who were in no little danger of
being cut off.

I called upon my men to follow, and went down the slope,
believing they were behind me; for as I advanced the Mexican
battalion fired very actively. Before I had gone a hundred yards a ball
shattered my left arm, and turning I found myself alone on that
bare hillside. The hill was very steep, and as I turned they
opened a rapid file fire upon me, but I managed to reach the
cover of the brush, faint and suffering severely. As I did so, a
rifleman sprang from behind the only tree affording shelter, and
ran to the rear for help. This quickly came in the person of
Sergeant Bob Coleman, a gallant soldier and an old schoolmate.
He assisted me to a surgeon, who cheerfully said, “You've a
very bad arm; I shall have to cut it off.”

I replied: “There's a man over there whose leg is worse than
my arm. When you are ready for me you will find me behind
that big rock down the hill.” On reaching the rock I found a
negro boy, a servant of Lieutenant Stuart, whose horse he had
in charge. I mounted it, and set out for Plan del Rio, five miles
in the rear, where I knew there were surgeons and all proper
accommodations for the wounded. Dr. Cuyler fixed me as
comfortably as possible, and said, “We can save that arm,
Maury”; to which I replied, “Do it at all risks. I will die before
I will lose it, and I assume all responsibility.”

Next morning the battle raged fiercely, but soon came the
cheerful strains of “Yankee Doodle” from our band escorting
the Mexican prisoners. Scott had won a great
victory, and our cavalry was pursuing the flying Mexicans
towards the city of Mexico. The Rifles had borne an active part
in the battle. Captain Mason and Lieutenants Ewell and Davis
were killed; I was severely, and three other officers slightly,
wounded. In the long and active service of that famous regiment,
every Virginian who entered it was killed, except myself, and I
was crippled for life. Generals Jeb Stuart, William E. Jones, and
Chamblis, who fell long afterward, were of this number. Loring,
our colonel, lost his arm at the gate of Mexico, but that never
abated his wonderful activity in many Indian campaigns, in the
war between the States, and in the Egyptian campaign against
Abyssinia. He served with distinction in the Egyptian wars, and
after his return published one of the most interesting books on
that country ever written. To the very last his impetuous
courage was unabated, and he was one of the most generous of
men. He had borne an active part in the Texan war of
independence and in the Seminole wars in Florida, having gone
from Florida to Texas as a volunteer at sixteen years of age.

While I was being borne from the field, Colonel Sumner, a
rough old dragoon who had been temporarily put in command
of the Rifles in the absence of our colonel, Persifer Smith, met
me, and learning what was going on in front hastened forward,
and was almost immediately knocked over by a glancing ball
upon his head. As soon after being carried to the rear as he
could walk, he came to me and spoke very kindly to me, calling
me “my brave boy,” which compensated for all the wound and
pain and for some previous roughness of manner to me. When
we reached Jalapa, Generals Harney, Twiggs, and Riley came to
see me, and made me proud and happy by the assurance that
good reports of their boy would gladden
the hearts of my dear mother and uncle far away in
old Fredericksburg.

On the evening of the 17th, as I was making my escape
from that bloody-minded surgeon who was so bent upon
cutting off my arm, I was a sorry spectacle, covered
with blood, pale and faint, one man leading my horse,
while Tom, the negro, glad enough to get off from that
field, kept close to me with a flask of brandy, and when
he saw me about to faint he would set me up with a pull
at it. We met General James Shields at the head of his
brigade, marching rapidly to go in the fight. He was a
fine, manly-looking fellow, and showed me much kindly
interest and sympathy. Next morning, in storming a
battery, a grape shot struck him fair in the breast, and passed
out at his back. Dr. Cuyler said to me, “Maury, I assure you,
you can double up your fist and pass your arm
through his body.” Yet he got well very soon, was
severely wounded again at the city of Mexico, and lived
to play an important part in making the fame of Stonewall
Jackson, and to claim a victory over him at Kernstown.
He died several years ago, greatly honored by his people,
who might have made him President but for his foreign
nationality. I never saw him after that memorable meeting,
but have always remembered gratefully his warm and
manly sympathy for me.

On the morning of the next day after being wounded,
I was removed from the tent to a spacious reed house
in the village, quite airy and comfortable. Captain Joe
Johnston, just promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel of one of
our new regiments, was lying there. He had been badly
shot six days before in a daring reconnaissance. During
the day Captain Mason was brought in, and lay in one of
the rooms opening upon the main hall, where I was. A
cannon-ball had torn off his leg, but he was very bright
and game. He and I often talked of the fine times we
would have at the Virginia Springs in the coming summer.
Poor fellow! He never saw them again. Two or
three weeks later blood poison set in, and he died soon
after being taken to Jalapa. His history was a sorrowful
one. The only son of Armstead Mason, who fell in a
duel with his kinsman, Colonel McCarthy, Stevens Mason
inherited his father's fine estate of Selma, in Loudon
County, where he lived extravagantly. A few years before
his death he married; his wife died within a year,
and after that all went ill with Mason. When his property
was all gone, he procured a captaincy in the Rifles,
and died bravely, a representative gentleman of the old
times.

A few days after being placed in the house, Dr. Cuyler
said to me: “Maury, there's a young fellow, Derby,
across the street, lying wounded among the volunteers,
who says he is a classmate of yours and wishes to come
over here. I would not agree to it without consulting
you, for he is a coarse fellow; but I don't like him to be
among the volunteers.” In that war the volunteers were
not regarded as they were in the great war between the
States.

Of course I cheerfully agreed to his being brought
over, and his cot was placed in the hall beside mine.
The partitions of the rooms were of reeds wattled together,
so that conversations could be heard from one room to
the other. John Phoenix Derby was an incessant talker,
and uttered a stream of coarse wit, to the great disgust
of Joe Johnston, who endured it in silence, till one day
he heard Derby order his servant to capture a kid out
of a flock of goats passing our door, when he broke out,
“If you dare to do that, I'll have you court-martialed
and cashiered or shot!”

In about ten days General Scott, having chased Santa Anna
out of the road, established himself at Jalapa, a lovely little
town on the slope of the mountains, looking down towards the
sea, some ninety miles distant. Scott sent litters and a strong
escort to move us up into that delicious climate. We took two
days to make the trip. All of the second day's march was a race
between my litter and that of a volunteer officer. We frequently
passed each other and had some pleasant chat. Two of my three
relays were short men, all of his were long legged fellows, so
that he could pass my short men, and I could close up when my
tall ones came. His were all good-natured volunteers from
Tennessee, I believe. I said, “I fear you'll beat me; you have the
legs of me.”

“Ah, you can't say that,” and the poor fellow held up the
stump of his amputated leg. I had not known before the nature
of his wound. I privately told my men I would give them a gold
piece or two, if they would get me into Jalapa first, and so they
did. Mason, Derby, and I were quartered in an elegant house,
where, in a short time, poor Mason left us. I went to the
Springs without him.

After Captain Mason's death, from blood poison, the doctors
discovered symptoms of it in me; but happily they passed
away, and I was permitted to walk about the city and enjoy the
beautiful scenery, the luxurious baths, the fruits, and the
flowers, and nowhere had I seen more pretty faces than were
found among the women of Jalapa.

Every day I went to see my friend, Colonel Joe Johnston,
still ill of his grievous wounds. He was affectionately tended by
his nephew, Preston Johnston, who was dear to him as a son.
He was a bright and joyous young fellow, full of hope and
courage, and worthy of the great race
from which he sprung. He fell a few months later while working
his gun against Chapultepec. Only a few weeks before General
Johnston died, he spoke to me of the death of this bright young
lad, who had been so dear to him. He said, “When Lee came to
tell me of Preston's mortal wound, he wept as he took my hand
in his.”

CHAPTER IV

Recollections of Jalapa - General Harney and the Seminoles - White Sulphur
Springs and its Patrons before the War - The Ashby Brothers - Ordered
to West Point as Instructor - Sports and Jokes of the Officers' Mess -
Anecdotes of McClellan, Fitz John Porter, and Others - Shooting and Other
Excursions

IN my daily visits to Johnston I passed a residence with deep, iron-barred
windows. As I went feebly by one day on the arm of a friend, Lieutenant
Coppee, I heard a sweet, sympathetic voice murmur, “Pobre teniente!”
(“Poor lieutenant!”); and, turning, I saw a beautiful young girl, a
perfect vision of female loveliness and sympathy. She was a blonde, with
exquisite features, blue eyes, and curling golden hair. I passed and repassed
there daily, and, after that, always received a smile and a bow from her,
but our acquaintance never progressed farther. I learned from an American
physician, who had lived twenty years in Jalapa, that she was the favorite daughter of Santa Anna, who, though he had never married her mother, had
richly endowed this child, whom any gentleman in Jalapa would gladly have
made his wife. If she be alive now, she must be sixty years old, and not so
attractive and lovable as she was when I last saw her.

My recollections of Jalapa are the most agreeable of any I retain of Mexico.
We were elegantly lodged and cared for, and I received much kind attention
from the general officers, who called to see how I was getting on
and to say kind things to me. Amongst them was General Benet Riley, who
had risen from a private soldier to his present rank for repeated acts of
gallantry. He was a man of great stature and fine martial bearing, but entirely
free from any ostentation. He had the proverbial humor of his race, and,
having lost a part of his palate, his voice was quite remarkable and added
zest to his narrations. He told me that he had been a shoemaker before he
enlisted in the last war, and that after he acquired the rank of General,
a fellow came to him one day and proposed to get up a coat of arms for him.
He “damned him” - told him to “Clear out; because, sir, I never had a coat
of any kind till I was twenty-one years old.”

Generals Twiggs and Harney of the Dragoons, and Sumner as well, were all
men of great stature and fine physique. It was quite remarkable that our dragoons should have included so many men of extraordinary size and weight.
In other countries this arm of the service seeks light and active men.
When Charley May was married, his groomsmen were his handsome brother Julian,
Sacket, and several others, all six feet and over. An English officer, who was
present at the marriage, said to May, “I understand you gentlemen are all of the
light dragoons. I would like very much to see your heavies, don't you know.”

General Harney, a native of Louisiana, was a very remarkable man. Of strong
convictions and extraordinary physical powers, he made his presence felt by all
sorts of people. While serving as Captain of Dragoons in Florida, he and his company were surprised in their camp one night by the Seminoles, and all but
himself were murdered as they slept. They were under their mosquito nets when
the Indians crept upon them. Two Indians were appointed to kill each man, and
took their
places on either side of him. At the signal, all struck and killed, save
those assigned to Harney, who, finding themselves too far removed from the
company's stores, deserted their post, that they might be sure of securing
their share of the plunder. Harney, aroused by the outcry, sprang from his
bed, accoutred as he was, and fled. He was six feet two inches tall and his
legs were well proportioned, and no Indian was able to run with him. He took
the route for the nearest station, some forty miles distant, through the
Everglades, where he arrived safely. He immediately got together a
considerable force, and succeeded in defeating and capturing a majority of
the band which had attacked him. He told me he hanged all of his prisoners,
because the Indians had a great and superstitious horror of hanging; for they
believe that no man's soul will be received into the happy hunting grounds that
does not pass through the throat, which is impossible when that route is closed
by a rope; it must seek another road of exit, and all such souls are rejected
at the gates of Paradise. He said a fine moral effect was produced upon the
Indians by this method of execution.

Early in June I was ordered out of the country to report when well enough for
recruiting service. We went down to Vera Cruz in a mule litter, the most
delightful of all the modes of travelling I have ever attempted. An old
paymaster, Major Hammond, and I had the litter to ourselves. We had pillows
and lay vis-à-vis on a great mattress. Our light baggage was in with us,
and our books and lunch, and our pistols made us feel safe. We reached Vera Cruz
at midday of a broiling June morning. The yellow fever was raging, and as we
passed the churches, the whole interior seemed occupied by the cots
of the sick. It was a relief, indeed, to get aboard a
comfortable steamer and breathe the fresh sea breeze. In those days
wounded men were rarely seen in our country; therefore, I was an object of
interest in Virginia, where I received more than my meed of praise, for I
was again complimented in orders and promoted, and the good people of
Fredericksburg gave me a beautiful sword, and the lovely Virginia girls
carved my chicken for me at dinner and were good to me generally.

The Mexican War was a fine experience for our troops. It was actively
pressed, by Taylor and Scott, from May, 1846, to September, 1847, and was
a series of victories without check, until the capital was captured and
peace was made. From first to last, we had 100,000 men enrolled in our
armies, but at no time were over 14,000 engaged in any battle. After the
siege of Vera Cruz, Scott's army was much reduced by the expiration of the
terms of service of the volunteers, so that he entered the great valley of
Mexico with only 9000 men, and received no reinforcements until after the
city was taken. By the terms of the treaty of peace, we received from
Mexico the vast territory embraced in California, New Mexico, and Arizona,
and a full surrender of the disputed territory of Texas, which lies between
the Rio Grande and the Nueces. In a spirit of fairness unusual in conquered
nations, we gave Mexico $10,000,000 as conscience money. Some years ago
when Mr. Hayes was preparing to invade Mexico, the newspapers of that
country admonished us that we had to pay Mexico $10,000,000 to stop the
last war, and we had better be careful how we again aroused their wrath.

So long a period had elapsed since our last war with Great Britain that a
whole generation had passed away, and few of our people had ever seen a
wounded soldier, and much interest and kindness were shown to such as
reached home. While on my homeward journey, I was detained a day in Louisville.
I was at the Galt House, and had occasion to go to a dry-goods store near
by for a silk handkerchief for my broken arm. I was followed and overtaken
by a kind-hearted Kentuckian, who with much interest asked, “Is it true that you
were wounded at the battle of Cerro Gordo?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sir, do you ever drink anything?”

“Yes.”

“Well, come, please, and take a drink with me.” He conducted me into the
bar-room of the Galt House and said to the bar-keeper, “Let him have the
best you have in the house, no matter what it costs.” This was but a faint
indication of what was in store for the wounded officers homeward bound.

A rumor of my death had preceded me, and there was great apprehension among
my friends lest my mother should hear it before better tidings came.
Fortunately, she was spared this pain, for I was her only child and she was
a widow. The doctors thought the White Sulphur a fine place for a young
soldier with a wounded arm, and there we went for the season and were very
happy together.

One day a party of us were playing whist in the bachelors' quarters in
Fredericksburg. It was very warm and we had laid aside our coats, when in
walked a committee of the citizens of Fredericksburg appointed to present
me a handsome sword. Captain William Lewis Herndon, afterwards the hero of
the Central America, was of the party. The sword was presented with an
appropriate speech, and finding myself quite unequal to reply to it, I
invited the committee to be seated while I composed a note of appreciation
and gratitude. This, with the assistance of Lewis Herndon, was happily
accomplished.

There was no railroad to the White Sulphur in those days, but it was,
nevertheless, the favorite summer resort with the best class of Southern
people. The long journeys over bad roads made four-in-hand teams a necessity,
as were baggage-wagons and a retinue of servants and saddle horses. Judges Brooke, Brokenborough, and Robinson, Jerome Bonaparte, of Baltimore, and
his brilliant wife, General Wade Hampton, Colonel Singleton, of South Carolina,
and Dick Taylor formed the usual coterie every summer. The Hamptons and
Singletons built their own spacious summer residences. There were many
complaints of the fare, which was considered poor and insufficient, but the
dignified proprietor, Mr. Caldwell, consoled his guests by assuring them they
paid nothing for their dinners, but only for the wonderful sulphur water
which he had discovered about the beginning of the century. During the
height of the season one day the crowded dining-room was appalled by a
loud cry of “Murder!” Steward and servants rushed to the victim, who
assured them he could get nothing to eat and was dying of starvation.
That young man was served well and promptly ever after.

Writing of the White Sulphur, I am reminded of the Ashby brothers. Turner
Ashby was one of the most loved of the devoted men of Virginia. He came of
a family famed for their expertness in all manly exercises. They were the
famed horsemen of the country. Their birthplace and home was in that
Piedmont region which had been noted for generations of bold riders, and
which was for four years the battle-field of the great armies of the South
and North. Turner Ashby and his younger brother Dick were the pride of all
that hard-riding countryside. They were devoted to each other and beloved
by all. Turner was not tall, but was powerful
and active. He was swarthy as a Spaniard, with a gentle, modest bearing
and as brave a heart as ever beat. Men and women alike trusted and respected
him. One day a great mountaineer, such as are commonly to be found in that
region of Virginia, came into the railroad store under his charge and
began to bully the youthful clerk, charging him with being dishonest.
Turner Ashby had come to the boy's aid when he heard the wanton insult,
and in a moment leaped across the counter, knocked the bully down, and
administered such a thrashing as he had never before experienced.

The whole of the family connection were manly in their traits, and the
women shared their pride. The boys had a sister, Dora. I well remember her
as a belle of the White Sulphur. Tall, with flashing black eyes and gleaming
ivory teeth, she was superb, resembling greatly that charming young Virginia
matron, who is still remembered and loved in Richmond as Emma Gray, now
Emma White of Norfolk. One day Dora Ashby was driving with young Herndon,
- youngest brother of Captain William Lewis Herndon, - when they heard
closing up behind them a clamorous uproar from a four-horse drag. The young
fellows in it were all cousins or other kinsmen of Dora's, and demanded that
she should give them the road. Their horses were almost running; Herndon put his
own to their fastest trot and kept his place. Finally the drag pushed them
hard and was about to pass them, when Herndon said, “Miss Dora, shall I give way
to the boys?”

“If you do,” she replied, “I will never ride with you again!” So Herndon
plied the whip, and the pursuers and pursued came tearing through the woods,
the buggy still leading, and the beautiful girl radiant with triumph. But,
alas, the young rascals suddenly came to
a cut-off, and, whirling into it, reached the hotel a length or two ahead
and won the race.

I used to meet the Ashbys in the summer at the White Sulphur. Every summer
there were tournaments, at which good horses and good horsemen showed their
power and skill. The Ashbys and the Greenes of Rappahannock and Stafford,
their near kin, were always active in these. Turner Ashby used to ride his
thoroughbred stallion at the ring without either saddle or bridle, and carried
it, too! It was said the young fellows of Rappahannock would not let him
enter for the prize unless he rode without saddle and bridle. Dick Ashby was one
of the handsomest and most winsome men I ever knew. He was six feet in his
stockings, straight as an Indian, handsome and gentle, and brave as the
bravest. He entered the war as a captain in the cavalry regiment his brother
Turner had raised and commanded. One of the earliest engagements of this
command was a scouting affair upon the Potomac near Romney, in which Dick
Ashby was killed while acting with heroic courage. His brother Turner came
too late to rescue him, but found him lying where he had fallen. His body
had been brutally mutilated. From that hour Turner Ashby was a changed man.
A stern sorrow became his controlling motive, a deep purpose of vengeance
possessed him, all his buoyancy and bright hopes of fame gave place to grief,
and his brief and glorious career closed when Jackson defeated Banks and Fremont
upon the same day. Ashby had dismounted his command, and sent his beautiful
white stallion to the rear, and drawing his sword commanded the charge, when he
fell dead, a bullet piercing his noble heart. Such were the Ashbys in
peace and war! They were all gathered at my wedding; they are all gone now.
Their first cousin, brave William
Greene, colonel of the Forty-seventh Virginia, fell at Gaines Mill, dying
as his cousin Turner had died only a few months before.

I was in the full enjoyment of the daily association with the charming
society gathered at the White Sulphur, when orders came for me to report
for duty at West Point. I was much disappointed, for my stay there as a
cadet had not been a happy one, and I had no desire to return to the Academy;
but on arriving there I was persuaded to remain and try the new duties and
relations of an officer and professor. There were already some nice young
fellows there, and presently there came from Mexico, McClellan, Franklin,
Ruddy Clarke, Baldy Smith, G. W. Smith, Kirby Smith, and several others who had
washed off the starch of the Academy in two years of war service, and
thenceforth we had a very agreeable sojourn together. Our duties were
congenial, and we had an excellent mess. The arrival of an old comrade of
the war, or of a foreign officer, was enough to start the champagne corks
popping; but we were not convivial alone in our pleasures, for we had several
clubs where we resumed our riding and fencing and Spanish. We had a Shakespeare
club, and a chess club, of which Professor Agnell was president; but best
of all was the Napoleon Club. Professor Mahan was president of this, and gave
out the Napoleon campaigns to be discussed by each member. Six weeks' time was
allowed to prepare the paper. We had ample authorities, both French and English,
at our disposal in the library, and worked diligently on our papers. The
campaign of Waterloo, by Lieutenant B. S. Alexander, was considered one of
the best discussions ever made of that notable defeat of Bonaparte. The
campaign of Russia, by G. W. Smith, and of Wagram, by McClellan, showed
marked ability. I believe something of this sort has been introduced into
the course of study for the cadets.

In this way we spent four years very profitably and happily at the Academy
Remembering how keenly I had felt the restrictions and surveillance of cadet
life, I determined to spare those who fell under my charge as much as possible.
One night while officer in charge, I came upon a young cadet asleep upon
his post. He had leaned his musket against the stair rail, and was fast asleep.
I knew it meant severe punishment for him, and he was such a delicate-looking
lad my sympathies were aroused, so I wakened him. He was greatly alarmed.
I said to him: “If I report this, you will probably be sent away from here
in disgrace, your family will be mortified, and you will be seriously injured by
it. If you will promise me never to allow it to happen again, I will take
no further notice of it.” Some years ago a well-known member of Congress
invited me to dine with him, and at the table told of this experience with
me at West Point. I had often vainly tried to recall the boy and his history,
and now for the first time learned both.

Professor Dennis Mahan was one of the ablest of the faculty at West Point.
He was a native of Norfolk, Virginia, and had not received a classical
education. He told me he was so impressed by the disadvantage of not having
studied Latin and Greek, that he had acquired them by hard work after he became
a professor at West Point. His was considered a hard nature by the cadets,
and he was given to saying sarcastic things in the section room; but I had
reason to observe that he was grateful for benefits bestowed upon him, and
capable of much real kindness. On one occasion, when a cadet, he made me
the victim of his sarcasm. While reciting
upon the construction of fortifications, he asked me, “Mr. Maury, what is
the height of the breast-height slope?”

“Five feet, sir,” I replied.

With that cold manner with which he used, to express his contempt for an
ignorant cadet, he said, “If it were five feet, Mr. Maury, you could not
shoot over it!” As I was only five feet three inches, at that time, this
personal allusion was received with a suppressed giggle by my classmates,
and for a long time I remembered it against him. Years afterward, he made
up for it one night in the Napoleon Club, of which, as I have said, he was
president. He came cordially up to me after I had finished reading my paper
on the Italian campaign of 1796, grasped my hand with real pleasure, and said:
“I congratulate you, Maury. You have discussed your subject in the very
spirit of that Italian campaign.” I could name many other things about
him highly creditable to his warm and generous heart. Some time after the
Civil War, at the age of seventy-five years, he lost his life by falling
from a steamboat on the Hudson River.

As I recall these memories of my long life, it seems to me people were
always glad when I did anything clever, with a sort of surprised gladness,
as if they had never thought I could do it. To tell the truth, I was always
surprised myself, and delighted in receiving praise, as I winced under
censure and that carping criticism which is the refuge and habit of weak
and ignorant natures. Fault-finding is the bane of discipline, while just
praise is the very life and object of high endeavor. A true soldier strives
and lives to win it. A martinet is an unhappy, worthless creature,
wretched and mischievous, too. The only consolation is that he is more unhappy than he makes other people.

While the hills and swamps about West Point were fairly good shooting-ground
for ruffled grouse (pheasants in Virginia, partridges in New York and
Pennsylvania) and woodcock, all of the little mountain streams thereabouts
had trout in them. One day, Fitz John Porter, McClellan, and I hired a boat
to go a-fishing for perch on the Hudson. We lay at the mouth of a creek
which emptied into the river a little more than a mile below the Point.
Finding no perch, I sauntered up the creek, searching for trout. In a little
over an hour I returned to my still unsuccessful companions with a good
creel full of trout; there were over thirty in all, and several were over
a foot long. A great sportsman named Warren, brother of General Warren,
told me he took over a hundred out of that little stream one day. I met
him once coming out of a woodcock swamp with thirty birds in his bag. He advised
me not to go in, as he had bagged them all; but having nowhere else to go,
I went in, and got eleven more. It was summer, and the birds were breeding.
I saw a group of five, not yet feathered. The law should protect the summer
birds.

Every winter we had several weeks of good sleighing. One day a party of us
drove up to Newburg. While resting our horses there, and sipping something
seasonable, one of us read aloud a funny trick of the famous wizard, Herr
Alexander, and we unanimously resolved to play it off on Ruddy Clarke, who
was always as ready to be the victim of a sell as we were to practise it upon
him. At that time, Franklin and Ruddy Clarke occupied a tower room in the
new barracks, with a chamber behind it, and it was our habit to adjourn
over there for social enjoyment. Besides Ruddy and Franklin, were usually
John M. Jones, Pull Hawes, Frank Clarke and Mac and I. So, after dinner, on our
return from Newburg,
I told Ruddy that I would bet him a bottle of champagne that he might go
into the other room, shut the door, and assume any position he chose, and
I would tell, from our room, what his position was. After much doubting and
questioning, he finally went into the darkened room, struck an attitude,
and called out, “What position am I in?”

I replied, “In the position of a great ass.” He looked it when he came out,
amidst our laughter, into the light. We induced him, by adroit investigation,
to describe to us his exact attitude. It was truly absurd for a professor.

We had a very jovial and humorous set of young officers stationed at the Academy
for several years after the Mexican War, and great kindness of feeling
prevailed. We played whist, dime points, and faro, and brag at the same moderate
rate. It was noted that at faro we almost invariably broke the bank. One
winter I was laid up for many weeks by an injury to my leg, received while
riding, and my room, during all that time, was the gathering place after dinner.
The card table was drawn up to my bed, and I played my hand till tired and
sleepy. One night we were playing brag, and I becoming tired and drowsy,
little Frank Clarke said he would play my hand for me while I slept. When
I awoke, next morning, I found the greatest amount I had ever won at cards
under my pillow. I reflected that it was a demoralizing amusement; that avarice,
the basest of human passions, was its moving impulse; that often, at the
card table, I observed some show of feeling that left an unpleasant remembrance
against a comrade, and that none of us could afford to win or lose even a few
dollars; so I ceased all play for money, and have been glad of it ever since.

During my stay at West Point as an instructor, Baldy Smith and I were
room-mates, and occupied a cottage overlooking Kosciusko's Gardens. We
were popular as “Subs,” and our pupils used to manifest their appreciation
of our efforts in their behalf by paying us long and frequent visits. Our
sensations during these well-meant and oft-repeated calls may be best described
in the language of a witty Frenchman who was invited to make a cruise on a
man-of-war, and afterwards wrote of his experiences there. He said: “Sometimes
I would dine with the captain in his cabin, sometimes with lieutenants in the
wardroom, and sometimes with midshipmen in the steerage; and my recollections of
the conversations of those midshipmen make my blood run cold to this day!”

No one seemed to have discovered the opportunities for good shooting, until I
came along with my setters and pointers. These dogs were a great comfort to me
and to my pupils; for they always accompanied me on my inspections, going before
me, and giving due notice of my approach, and they were cherished accordingly by
the cadets.

Captain Alden, Robert Coleman, Fitz John Porter, and I made several shooting
excursions over the mountains into Orange County, where the Warwick Woodlands,
famed by Frank Forrester, gave us fine sport. We took up our quarters
with a plain farmer upon the turnpike, named Dickerman, who made us comfortable.
He had a very handsome and cultivated daughter, who was not only the maid
of all work, but who in the evenings, after our day's hunt was over, would
entertain us in the parlor. She was an excellent musician, and an expert in the
art of greasing and polishing our hunting-boots after a hard day's tramp through
the mud.

Sometimes Porter and I would ride over to the home of Mr. Peter Townsend,
and spend the night, returning next morning in time for our day's work. Mr.
Townsend was a most agreeable country gentleman of New York, and had a vast
establishment in Orange County. His wife and three daughters made up his
household, and a charming family it was. Mrs. Townsend was very dignified
and attractive, and her daughters were all bright, cordial, and handsome,
and were great favorites with the young officers at West Point. One of them
married General Meagher, the gallant commander of the most distinguished Federal
brigade in the battle of Fredericksburg, that Irish brigade which charged,
and charged again, Lee's line at Marye's Hill, until eye-witnesses have told
me that they could walk along its whole front, and step every step upon the
bodies of its dead. After their final repulse, a young soldier named Kirkland,
a private in a South Carolina regiment, having obtained permission of his
colonel, climbed over the famous stone wall, and, under heavy fire, went
out upon the field, bearing canteens of water to the wounded, to all of which he
ministered. Unhappily for his country, he did not survive the war; we cannot
afford to lose the breed of such men. Another of Mr. Townsend's daughters
married General Barlow of New York, a warm personal friend of General Dick
Taylor, and a well-known gentleman of New York. I was the recipient of
much graceful hospitality from Mr. Townsend's charming
household, and time has not dimmed my remembrance of the
many delightful hours for which I was their debtor.

CHAPTER V

The Rifles ordered to Oregon - Captain Stuart's Tragic Fate - Reminiscences
of McClellan - His Capacity and Character illustrated - His Comments upon
Foreign Campaigns - His Popularity with his Troops - A Criticism of the
Crimean War - McClellan and Grant contrasted - Generals Franklin, Hancock,
and Meade - Young Jerome Bonaparte

AMONG my friends of those far-away days was Captain Stuart, who was the son of
an able editor of the Charleston Mercury, and was a great-nephew of Sir John
Stuart, who won the battle of Maida and who at his death was the nearest
survivor of the royal family of Stuart. He served with me in the Mounted Rifles,
and was one of the most interesting characters I have ever known. Handsome, and
gentle as a woman, no soldier of our army surpassed him in courage and daring,
and after two years of active service the commanding general said in his report
of the last battle of the Mexican War, “Lieutenant Stuart of the Rifles,
leaping the ditch, was the first American to enter the city of Mexico.”

When the Mexican War was ended, and after I was ordered to West Point, our
regiment made ready for service in Oregon, marched across the great plains,
and occupied for the ensuing four years that wild and unknown region where
there were then only a few venturesome people of the American and British
fur-trading companies. At the end of their term of service, the Rifles
were destined for the frontier of Texas, while the First Dragoons and other
troops took their place in Oregon. The officers and non-commissioned officers
were sent by sea back to the States, while our horses and the private soldiers,
of whom not many remained, were transferred to the dragoons. Captain Phil
Kearney, afterwards General Phil Kearney, who fell in the disastrous defeat of
General Pope at Manassas, was selected to conduct the transfer of our horses,
etc., and to aid him in this work he chose Captain John G. Walker and James
Stuart. If there was any officer in our regiment equal to Stuart in conduct, it
was Walker, and the two were close friends.

This interesting march seemed an indulgence and a trip of pleasure. The weather
was fine, there seemed nothing likely to disturb them on the route, and their
service being ended when California was reached, they, Stuart and Walker
together, would return to their homes in the States, where Jamie hoped to find
the lady of his love awaiting him. Their road to California lay through the
country of the Rogue River Indians, but they were not known to be hostile, and
every prospect seemed pleasant to these two comrades. The worst of their journey
was over, when one night Walker was aroused by Stuart, who shared his tent. It
was after midnight, and Stuart said he had not been able to sleep at all because
of a conviction that his death was at hand. He could not rid himself of the
feeling, and he wished Walker to see to it that the wishes he now desired to
impart would be carried out.

In vain Walker tried first to laugh away all this as a sort of nightmare.
Stuart agreed that it might be so, but he urged his friend to listen and to
promise him to be the executor of his last request, to which Walker at last
assented, little suspecting the catastrophe hanging
over them. The next day's march justified Stuart's anxieties; for they found
that the Rogue River Indians had begun hostilities, and came upon the trail of a
large Indian war party, and preparations were immediately made to follow it and
punish the hostiles. At their breakfast next morning, Stuart told of a vivid
dream which had troubled him, - how an Indian warrior appeared at the
door of the tent, drew his bow upon Walker first, and then changing his aim to
Stuart, shot him through the body.

Kearney divided his command for the march and fight that day into two bodies,
sending Stuart with his party down the river on the opposite side, where they
came up with the enemy, charged, and scattered them. The chief seemed to
surrender to Stuart, who ordered him to drop his bow, and to emphasize the order
tapped him upon his head. Instantly the chief drove an arrow through Stuart's
body. He lived a few hours in great agony; his grave was made under a tree at
the forks of the road, and carefully marked.

George B. McClellan, to whose cadet days I have already briefly referred,
came to West Point at the age of fifteen years and seven months. He bore every
evidence of gentle nature and high culture, and his countenance was as charming
as his demeanor was modest and winning. His father, the celebrated Dr.
McClellan, and his elder brother, Dr. John McClellan, were two of the ablest
and best-educated men of their day, and he had been reared in their presence.
I remember that it was about the middle of June, 1842, when we first met in the
section room at West Point. The class was at first arranged according
to alphabetical order, and our initial letters placed us for a brief space side
by side. For a very brief space it was, for he pushed at
once to the head, while I plodded along in the middle - that easiest and
safest of positions - through all the long four years of my cadetship. At the
end, Mac went into the Engineer Corps, and I, as I have said, into the
Rifles. After the Mexican War, while we were both at West Point as instructors,
we were, of course, daily associated together for several years, and a happy
association it was. A brighter, kindlier, more genial gentleman did not live
than he. Sharing freely in all the convivial hospitality of the mess, he was a
constant student of his profession. Having been instructed in the Classics and
in French before he came to the Academy, he learned Spanish and German there,
and before he was sent to Europe to study and report upon the cavalry
service of the great military powers of the world, he had acquired sufficient
knowledge of the Russian language to enable him to make a satisfactory and
valuable report. The excellent saddles and horse equipage ever since used in
our service were introduced by him from the Cossacks. He was an excellent
horseman, and one of our most athletic and best swordsmen. We rode and fenced
together almost daily. His father gave him a handsome thoroughbred mare, and I
had brought from Virginia a very fleet race mare. So long as my arm was in
splints, she ran away with me whenever I rode her. Nobody else would ride her;
but she threw me only twice in the four years, once by carrying me under a limb
which swept me off over her tail, and again when she reared and fell over
on me, which didn't hurt me, while it gave great amusement to the crowded
company of passengers on the steamer New World, before whom I had tried to
“show off” as I galloped down to the wharf on my beautiful thoroughbred mare,
arrayed in my best suit of cavalry clothes.

Mac and Mac's mare had no such foolishness about them. One bright, but bitter
cold Christmas Day, he and I decided to escape the wassail of the Academy by
riding over the mountains to Newburg. A heavy snow covered the ground, and the
road was so slippery we had to lead our horses part of the way. About 11 A. M. we
reached a little country church where Christmas services were being held.
A number of handsome sleighs about the door bespoke a congregation of the
gentlefolks of the county, and we decided to enter and join in the service. Over
our uniforms we wore the heavy blue overcoats of the cavalry soldier. There were
but few people in the church, so we modestly took our places in one of the many
empty pews upon a side aisle. The service was progressing when the sexton,
evidently indignant that private soldiers should intrude themselves into such a
company as his congregation, marched us out of our position and back into one of
the pauper pews of the church. We noticed that the rector paused on seeing this
blunder on the part of his subordinate, and afterwards we were told how annoyed
he had been by it. To us it was only a funny incident of a cold tramp.

We got back just at dusk, as the mess were sitting down to a rich Christmas
dinner. We had seen nothing to eat or drink, save a glass of something hot at
Newburg. Had that aristocratic congregation known it was the future general of
the Army of the Potomac who was with them in their Christmas service, we might
not have been so hungry and thirsty when we opened the mess-room door and
called, “Newel, give us some champagne.” Old George Thomas was then president of
the mess, and a more genial and kindly president we never had. Everybody loved him, and he was at that time
a Virginian before everything else. Franklin and Ruddy Clarke, Kirby Smith,
G. W. Smith, Neighbor Jones, John M. Jones, W. P. de Janou, and a score of
others were round that Christmas board, and joined in the burst of welcome as we
broke in. I well remember that it was one of our jolliest, as it was our last,
Christmas together; for before the year rolled around, we were scattered to our
distant posts, never to meet again.

McClellan had the happiest faculty of acquiring knowledge I have ever known, and
unlike most men who store up learning, he knew well how to use it when the
occasion came. He would often sit late with a jovial party, and then go to study
while we went to bed, and be up in the morning, bright as the brightest. His
report of his observations in his inspections of the military establishments of
Europe was of great value. He was present with the allied armies in the Crimea,
and had the best opportunities of observing the relative position of the troops
and their generals. He considered Omar Pasha the ablest of all those generals.
It is well known that when the allies arrived on the field, Omar had already
driven every Russian across the Danube, and left nothing for the allies to do.
But in a council of war of the commanding generals, it was resolved that the
eyes of Europe were upon them; that it would never do to let that infidel dog
have all the credit; and that they must do something to eclipse the glories of
the Turk. They resolved upon the invasion and occupation of the Crimea. We
all remember how sad and unfortunate was the conduct of the affair, - how
England, especially, showed so little aptitude for field operations against
well-commanded and well-organized European troops, that she lost her prestige;
and it was said the Emperor Napoleon had brought her
into that business, in order that her inferiority as a war power might be
demonstrated before the world.

Lord Raglan sailed for the Crimea with about twenty-six thousand troops. The
debarkation of his army upon the Crimean coast occupied six days; and then
he was several days' march from Sebastopol, without any transportation
for his supplies or one dollar of current money. McClellan had been with Scott
when he landed fourteen thousand Americans within three miles of Vera Cruz in
six hours, invested that city by the morning of the second day, and captured it
in two weeks' time. McClellan could only find in the splendid constancy of the
British troops in the battle of Inkerman a justification of their claim to
superiority. In marking out the lines of attack upon Sebastopol, the French took
to themselves the right of the line, which, McClellan observed, was much more
difficult to entrench than the left of the line, which the English occupied.
Yet, upon the signal for assault, when the French, with MacMahon at their head,
with his cap upon his sword, swarmed over the Russian defences, the English,
having several hundred yards of open ground to pass before reaching the Redan,
were repulsed with heavy loss, until the French achieved such a position as
enabled them to break the Russian defence and let their allies into the works.
The capture of the city and works was but a small part of what lay before the
allied army. The defences of the north side seemed unassailable. McClellan
believed that the death of Nicholas enabled his son, Alexander, to make peace
when the allies had made their last effort, and thus the English army, under
brave Sir Colin Campbell, was enabled to reach India in time to save that empire. The Sepoy revolt is now believed to have been the result of Russian
machination. McClellan thought so then.

He was in the Crimea when the charge of the Light Brigade took place. So also
was Colonel Jerome Bonaparte. He was captain of cavalry and aide-de-camp
to General Meurice, who commanded the French cavalry upon that field. From
McClellan, from Bonaparte, and from the contemporaneous newspaper reports,
we learned of that affair, as follows. A short time before this date, the
allied cavalry was drawn up in column, probably of squadrons, watching a heavy
demonstration of Cossack cavalry. The British Heavy Brigade, under the command
of General Scarlet, was in front of the column; next came the Light Brigade,
Lord Cardigan; and Lord Lucan commanded the whole British division. The French
cavalry, also in column of attack, was in rear of the British when the Cossacks
charged the infantry line, a regiment of Scottish Highlanders, part of Sir Colin
Campbell's command. The Highlanders poured a heavy fire from their line of
battle upon the Cossacks, which staggered and confused them. At the same instant
Lord Lucan ordered General Scarlet to “Charge those Cossacks with the Heavies,”
which was promptly and handsomely done, and the Russians were driven away. Lord
Lucan was an impetuous commander, and in his hot courage joined in the charge
and sword play of the “Heavies,” leaving his Light Brigade standing without
orders. Cardigan felt he could not take the responsibility of moving without
orders, and because the Light Brigade did not move, the French cavalry behind it
could not, therefore the Cossacks got off with only the punishment administered
by the “Heavies.” There was much chaffing of the Light Brigade by their
comrades, because of this incident. On Lord Raglan's staff was a clever,
ambitious cavalry major, Nolan, who was the apostle of the power
of light cavalry. He had written a very clever book we young officers used to
enjoy, which proved that light cavalry could deal with any sort of troops.
He was greatly grieved by this lost opportunity. A short time after, Lord
Raglan ordered an attack by all the British troops, and gave Major Nolan the
paragraph from the order, saying, “The Light Brigade will charge and recapture
the English guns.” Some time before, the Russians had captured an English
battery which was at this time parked with some twenty other field-pieces in
front of where Lord Lucan's cavalry was drawn up. The story goes that Nolan
galloped off delighted, all too hastily, and gave the order to Lord Lucan, who,
looking at the array of cannon about a mile away, exclaimed, “Charge what?”

“That,” Nolan replied, adding bitterly, “Shall I show your lordship the way?”
as he took his place at the head of the squadron. Lord Lucan, swearing no man
but himself should lead his command, dashed past him and ordered the charge to
be sounded, and away went the seven hundred fine British horses over the plain
at a smashing gallop. The Russian batteries poured a heavy fire into them, and
the Russian cavalry and infantry picked up such of them as got through the guns.
General Meurice exclaimed: “That is magnificent, but that is not war! Go,
Bonaparte, ask Lord Lucan what it means, and how I can help him.”

At the same time several French squadrons were deployed, which drove back the
pursuing Russians and covered the retreating English. Bonaparte found Lord
Lucan in a great rage. “Means, sir!” he said. “It means that my brigade is
destroyed, my son is killed, my nephew is killed”; and as some bearers carried
Major Nolan's body by, he added, “And it is well for
that poor young man he lies there, for he would have a heavy reckoning with me
for this day's work. But tell him, by God, sir, I have the written order for it!
Here's the written order for it.”

And so ended this famous charge, the result of a blunder. Fifty-two men and six
officers were killed, and the usual proportion wounded out of about seven
hundred.

While McClellan's sympathies were with the Southern States, in which were his
kindred and warmest friends, he never wavered in his natural allegiance to
Pennsylvania. Several years before the outbreak of the war, and soon after his
return from the Crimea, he resigned his captaincy in the army to accept the
presidency of the Mississippi Central Railroad, and in the winter of 1860-61
wrote me, then in Santa Fé, that while he knew the South was being wronged, and
feared that war was inevitable, he would fight, if fight he must, for
Pennsylvania, his native State. I could not blame him, for I, too, felt my
paramount allegiance to Virginia. I confess I was surprised when, on my anxious
and perilous journey home, I was met upon the plains by the tidings of
McClellan's victory in West Virginia, and his proclamation terming us “Rebels.”
But he was a high-toned, humane gentleman, and no words or acts of cruelty
were ever attributed to him. After the war, we soon resumed our friendly
relations, which were only terminated by his untimely death.

McClellan was no politician. He was a gentleman and a soldier of a very high
order. Every feeling and instinct of his nature was averse to the character and
war policy of the administration. Lincoln and Stanton required that the
army should always be interposed between them and the Confederate capital.
McClellan in vain pointed out to them that to capture Richmond,
the army should operate from below it. Grant, three years later, urged the
same base of operations, but Mr. Stanton replied that he must attack from the
Washington side. Grant said, “If I do, I shall lose one hundred thousand
men.” Stanton assured him he should have them to lose. And now we know that he
did lose over eighty thousand before he placed his army where he ultimately took
Richmond.

McClellan possessed in a remarkable degree the confidence and love of his
troops. This was manifested in an extraordinary manner when he came to General
Pope's routed army; it was in utter disorder. Generals Pope, McDowell, and the
mob of defeated soldiers, were all crowding along the road to Alexandria, when
“Little Mac” appeared. At once a change came over the soldiers. They knew Pope
was no general, and they had more confidence in “Little Mac” than in any man
alive. His assumption of command spread hope and joy throughout their ranks,
which at once assumed shape and order, and in a few days McClellan had the Army
of the Potomac in hand, and was marching it with precision and order to
hinder Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania. The army of northern Virginia encountered
and defeated them, destroying three corps, and crossed the Potomac with all
the rich stores captured in Pennsylvania, and moved on to new fields of glory.
But the Capital was saved, and McClellan had saved it, and was then deposed. The
army and the people followed him with their confidence and love. He ran for the
Presidency upon a platform that was pacific and just, and would have spared our
country the cruelty of Andrew Johnson's reconstruction.

It is difficult to compare McClellan with Grant; both men were kindly in nature,
both were brave. While
McClellan was personally as brave as Grant, and of a higher spirit, he seemed
to lack that inflexible decision of opinion and purpose which bore Grant to his
great fortune. While McClellan would be, and was, eminent amongst the highest
characters and in the greatest affairs of peace or war, Grant seemed suited only
to such a terrible occasion as brought him from his tannery into fame. But for
the war, he would possibly have pursued to the end of his life his early
calling.

Pennsylvania has in every war furnished many able soldiers to our armies, and it
has been my good fortune to know some of them well, and to retain their
friendship until this day. General William B. Franklin is of the highest class
of Pennsylvania gentlemen. Like McClellan and Hancock, he was well born and
educated, and combined the versatile capacity and attainments of the former with
the sturdy character of the latter. We were both stationed at West Point as
instructors, and our acquaintance ripened into a friendship which in its warmth
and congeniality has often reminded me of that which united Warrington and
Pendennis. It has survived through all the chances and changes of a lifetime.
Franklin's father was an able clerk of the House of Representatives, and by a
happy lot he married the daughter of Matthew St. Clair Clarke, who succeeded his
father in office, holding the position for many years. Such an illustration of
congenial marriage as theirs is rarely seen. All these years they have together
trod their journey, joying and giving joy to the same friends, having the same
memories and the same firm faith in their life to come.

Hancock, a native of Pennsylvania, and Meade, who came of a Pennsylvania family,
but was born in Spain, were high-toned gentlemen and great commanders. In
fact, no State in the Union has produced so many great soldiers as Pennsylvania,
save Virginia. And there are so many points of resemblance, and so many
identities of soil, climate, character, and history between Virginia and
Pennsylvania, that it seems as if we ought never to have been a divided people
or separate communities. In times long gone we co-operated in our common
defence. When Braddock marched to free Pennsylvania from a cruel enemy,
Washington was the pioneer of his army through the wilderness, while Ben
Franklin was its purveyor. A generation later, when that scheme of civil liberty
which blesses all mankind to-day was announced, it was cradled in Pennsylvania,
and Pennsylvanians died in Virginia, and Virginians in Pennsylvania, to
establish it. The same climate blesses our whole territory, and the waters which
fertilize the fields of Pennsylvania and bear her cereals to the sea flow
through Virginia, too. And those blue mountains which beautify and have built up
the prosperity of the one State, sweep down through the other as well. In both
of these States no slavery can ever exist again, and all conditions impel them
as one great people to co-operate for the common good of our common country.

Among those whom I found when I returned to West Point after the Mexican War,
was young Jerome Bonaparte. He is a grandson of King Jerome who, when in
Baltimore as a lieutenant in the French navy, married the beautiful Miss
Patterson, a reigning belle of that city. The Emperor Napoleon disapproved
of his brother's marriage to one not of royal rank. Colonel Bonaparte's father,
Mr. Jerome Bonaparte, for many years a distinguished member of society in
Baltimore, was the only issue of the first marriage of King Jerome.

In 1854, Colonel Bonaparte was graduated at West
Point, and entered C Troop of the Mounted Rifles, then serving at Fort Inge,
Texas. After one or two years of frontier service, the Emperor Napoleon III.
summoned him to France. He served in Algiers, in the Italian campaign,
through the Crimean War, and in the war between France and Germany. On his
return from the Crimea he came to Carlisle Barracks and paid us a visit; he had
seen his first service under me in the Rifles. It was then that he gave me
many interesting details of the military operations there which came under his
personal observation, and to which I have briefly alluded. Colonel Bonaparte's
commanding appearance, the grace and gentleness of his demeanor, and his fine
intelligence win for him the admiration of all who know him. He was held in high
esteem by Louis Napoleon and his beautiful and unfortunate Empress.

CHAPTER VI

General Stonewall Jackson - His Remarkable Character - Married at
“Cleveland” to the Eldest Daughter of Mr. Wiley Roy Mason - Anecdotes of
General Burnside - On the Texas Frontier with the Rifles - The Life at Fort
Inge - Mrs. Maury's Journey to the Post - Promoted and transferred - Sent
Home on Sick Leave

ONE day while at West Point we were surprised by a visit from young Major
Stonewall Jackson, who had been serving since the war with an artillery company
on duty in New York harbor. At that time he was convinced that one of his legs
was bigger than the other, and that one of his arms was likewise unduly heavy.
He had acquired the habit of raising the heavy arm straight up so that, as he
said, the blood would run back into his body and lighten it. I believe he never
after relinquished this peculiar practice, even upon the battle-field. He told
us he had procured a year's furlough to try a professorship which had been
offered him at the Virginia Military Institute. He remained there until the
outbreak of the war between the States brought him before the world as the great
Christian soldier of his time.

His was the most remarkable character I have ever known. Cold and impassive of
aspect, he was tenderly affectionate and full of fire. Filled with conscientious
scruples, he was at times cruelly unjust. His arrests of Hill, Winder, and
General Richard Garnett, three of the noblest officers in our service, were
inexcusable,
especially that of Garnett, whom he arrested for not charging Shields'
victorious army with the bayonet when his ammunition failed! Jackson permitted
him to remain in this painful position for many months, and when Garnett
finally succeeded in obtaining a trial before a court-martial, he was acquitted
upon Jackson's own testimony! The court yielded to Garnett's insistence that his
treatment had been so unjustifiable as to make it only right that he should
place on record the testimony for the defence. Poor Garnett! He fell in the
front of his brigade at Gettysburg, loved and mourned by all who knew him.

The arrest of General Charles Winder was another act of unreasoning harshness,
which General Dick Taylor, who had great influence with Jackson, induced him to
revoke. Twice he arrested that noble soldier, A. P. Hill, whose name was the
last upon his own lips and those of Lee. General Lee was deeply pained by this
inharmony between two of his ablest officers, and summoned them before him with
a view of causing a reconciliation. After hearing their several statements, Lee,
walking gravely to and fro, said, “He who has been the most aggrieved can be the
most magnanimous and make the first overtures of peace.” This wise verdict
forever settled their differences. Jackson unhappily died at Chancellorsville in
the zenith of his great fame, and in the grandest victory of Lee's army. Hill,
more fortunate, fell by the last hostile shot at Petersburg, and both
were spared the misery of the surrender and its cruel consequences. Hill's was a
very gentle, affectionate nature, full of courage and of high ambition. The
noble monument, recently unveiled in Richmond, designed by the Virginia artist,
Shepherd, is the perfect presentment of this distinguished soldier.

Just before going to the Mexican War, I went with my
mother and sister to the Warrenton Springs, then a favorite resort of the
tide-water Virginians. The day after our arrival there, as I was descending the
steps, I met a party of young ladies coming up. As they reached the top, one of
them missed the step and fell. I assisted her to rise, and we were introduced;
she was Miss Nannie Mason, and from that day we became very warm friends. The
exigencies of the service demanded my departure from the springs after some
weeks of delightful association, and we only met briefly and casually until time
and opportunity favored me, and we discovered we had lost much happiness.

Soon after the execution of King Charles, many of his adherents came to this
Virginia, among them two brothers, John and George Mason. The great George
Mason, the author of the Bill of Rights, was descended from one of these
brothers, and Judge John Y. Mason, once our Minister to France, was
descended from the other. My wife's father, Mr. Wiley Roy Mason, was remotely
akin to the judge, and they were close friends, and in their day no higher or
more congenial gentlemen than these two were to be found in all our land. Mr. Roy
Mason had gone into King George County with his young wife, to seek
his fortune. He was without property or money in 1830, and had built up the
largest law practice in all that region, and acquired real estate which yielded
him annually more than his practice. Such was the confidence in his integrity
and ability, that it was said of him that he had done away with litigation in
the court of King George County, because when people had a disagreement
about rights of property, they went to Roy Mason's office and left the case for
him to decide, with entire confidence in the uprightness of the decision, and
escaped big fees and court charges.

Mr. Mason kept open house at “Cleveland,” his country home, and my marriage with
his eldest daughter was made the occasion of a generous hospitality which was
long remembered in the county. There were eight bridesmaids and groomsmen,
and I asked McClellan and Franklin to be of the number, but distant service
prevented them from coming, and Burnside and Reno, of the Ordnance, took their
places. Neighbor Jones and Seth Barton came to represent the army, and many
score of gentlemen, schoolmates, and friends, - Turner Ashby and his
noble brother Dick, and many another destined soon to fall in defence of our
homes. My wife had three sisters and three first cousins, who followed her
example, and married army officers. They were all remarkably handsome and
attractive girls, and General Sherman finally predicted, “Those Mason girls will
break up the army.”

Burnside was the life of many a jovial incident of that long-remembered
wedding. The festivities lasted a week, and he had never before enjoyed an
occasion so entirely to his taste. He remembered in the day of his power
the kindness he had received at “Cleveland,” and when Mr. Stanton sent an order
for the arrest of Mr. Mason, Judge Lomax, Colonel Washington, Dr. Stuart,
Mr. Thomas Barton, and other old and prominent gentlemen of the Northern Neck,
Burnside forbore to execute it, and he gave Mrs. Mason a safeguard for her home
and property, which were never molested until after his removal from the
command of the army and district. Then a regiment under the command of Sir Percy
Wyndham, an Englishman, “looted” “Cleveland,” carried off a great store of
choice old wines and brandy, the finest in the county, many household and
personal effects and private letters, and my family Bible. When Mr. Mason
returned from
Fredericksburg that day, he found his house had been thus invaded, and went in
person to see the colonel, who caused the return of the Bible. But of his wines,
etc., he never saw more, except about a quart of his Tinto Madeira, which
one of his old servants brought him when he came home wet and chilled that
night. It had been poured into her cabin pail by a good-natured soldier, who had
no turn for such thin tipple after the choice old brandy.

About 1856, Burnside was stationed at Tucalote, a Mexican village some twenty
miles west of Fort Union. The Apache Indians were not friendly, and on the
occasion of some grievance came into the village with insolent and threatening
deportment, fully armed, and ready for a fight. At this time Burnside's
battery had no rifles or revolvers, - only the artillery sabre, and
there were but forty men, all told, for duty. These he marched to where the
Indians were daring an attack. After some inconclusive discussion, the Indians
ended all further talk by a discharge of arrows. Burnside charged them at once,
broke and scattered them, and chased them for some miles over the open prairie
towards cover. His horses enabled his party to overtake the flying Indians, but
the blows of the dull sabres glanced from their shining skulls almost armlessly.
He then gave point with fine effect, so that some twenty of the hostiles were
killed before they reached the shelter of the timber. Soon after this he
resigned and joined McClellan in his railroad business, until the war between
the States brought them both again into service.

After the war, Burnside remembered the good people he had met and known in
Virginia, and, learning that a young lady, who was one of the bridesmaids at my
wedding, had been turned out of her office as a clerk in one
of the departments, he left the White Sulphur Springs and posted to Washington,
and had her reinstated. He was an excellent officer, but he knew his measure and felt his unfitness to supersede McClellan, whom he had long and justly looked
upon as his superior. He protested against the change of commanders, made as it
was after McClellan's most signal service.

At the end of my furlough, I joined my Company H of the Rifles at Fort Inge, on
the Leona River, a beautiful little stream which gushes out of a deep, bright
pool, well stocked with fine, black bass. There were no settlements between us
and the Rio Grande, ninety miles away, and only occasional bands of marauding
Indians passed along there. These were mostly Lipans, who made frequent
incursions into the country about San Antonio and the lower Rio Grande. For
several years the Rifles were occupied in scouting for these depredators, and
occasionally a band was caught and scattered. When hard pressed, they would
separate and make their way singly across the Rio Grande into Mexico, where
they were safe from our pursuit. These Indians had their resting-places at Fort
Worth, upon the upper Brazos, near where the Second Dragoons were stationed, and
they always kept the peace with them. Evidently they regarded us as a separate
tribe, for whenever they were about to make a raid down our way, they would tell
the dragoons that they had “war with the Rifles” and gravely bid them “Good by.”

In those days the quarters for officers and troops, upon the frontier, were only
such as the soldiers could construct of the materials at hand. At Fort Inge they
were made of poles set in trenches close together, the many open chinks being
daubed with mud. The roofs were thatched, and the floors were of coarse boards
sawed by hand. All was as unsightly as it was comfortless. Fortunately, the
climate
was so mild that we had no occasion for fires except for cooking. Game of every
sort abounded all about us. Deer, wild turkeys, ducks, partridges, were to be
had for the seeking. San Antonio, ninety-eight miles to the eastward, was our
nearest town; from thence our mail came by courier once a week.

Colonel George Crittenden, then commanding Fort Inge, one day killed ten deer in
nine shots. He used a little, small-bore rifle, muzzle-loader, of course. He was
a wonderful fisherman, and spent day after day floating along the Leona,
catching black bass. One day he took a bass which weighed eight pounds. He
said he had often seen one which weighed ten pounds, but never could catch him.
When at guard-mounting the orderly would daily report to him, his formula was,
“Do you know how to catch minnows?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Then take my bucket, go to the creek, and catch some.”

When he had accomplished this duty, the colonel would say, “You may go to your
quarters.”

He had early gone to Texas, and was one of the Mier prisoners who had to draw
for the black bean when that ill-conducted invasion came to grief. One out of
every ten Americans captured was shot. The colonel told me that one day
while in prison in Matamoras, he examined the well of the prison, and discovered
a fish in it. I said, “I'll bet you caught him.” He laughed, and replied,
“Indeed, I did. I got a pin, made a hook, found a piece of twine, and fished for
that fellow till I caught him.” He told me he had on one occasion fished in the
Tennessee River two days without getting a bite, and enjoyed it as much as any
fishing he had ever had.

Colonel Crittenden was one of the most honorable and truthful gentlemen I have
ever known, and was a son
of the distinguished John J. Crittenden, long United States senator from
Kentucky, whose influence was most potent in preventing the secession of his
State. His father's course greatly distressed Colonel Crittenden. He told me in
Santa Fé, at the outbreak of the war, “I am sure I shall find my father
altogether with the South when I get home.” The unfortunate affair at
Fishing Creek, where the Confederate force under his command was badly worsted,
ended his career in the field. He lived many years after the war, and enjoyed
the good-will and respect of all who knew him.

The only other officer at Fort Inge was the Assistant Surgeon, Dr. Getty. The
Indians were quiet and we led a very uneventful life, our chief interest being
the care of the horses sick with the glanders. At least one-third of the troop
had glanders or farcy. Some died, some we shot, but most of them entirely
recovered. Many escaped the loathsome disease, which was quite remarkable, for
we had no separate stabling or pasturage for them.

In the course of that year, young Jerome Bonaparte joined us, and I was enabled
to go to New Orleans to meet my wife and bring her to Fort Inge. It was a
comfortless abiding-place for one reared as she had been, but then, as ever, her
home was with her husband. It was some years before she ever met any of
the wives of the officers of the Rifles. Now whole regiments are together in
completely comfortable and handsome residences, but it was very different then.
I found my wife at the home of Dr. Wedderburn, a well-known physician of the
city. The yellow fever was raging, and quinine and opium were his especial
prescription for it. I think he gave as much as thirty grains of quinine and
four grains of opium in bad cases of yellow fever, with unfailing success, he
said.

The fever increased in violence, and we soon made haste to leave, taking passage
on the steamer Fashion, Captain Baker commanding. She was a very frail vessel,
such as no quartermaster would dare to send troops or stores in now, but
her captain was well acquainted with her ways and the ways of these seas,
and had kept her going for many a year, until, not long after our voyage, even
his skill could not prevail against the power of one of our Gulf storms, and the
Fashion was wrecked. Captain Baker's sons were gallant officers of the Navy, and
for many years one of them has been the able editor of the Times-Democrat.

There were several officers and families going out on this trip, and we made the
journey from San Antonio in ambulances, keeping together for sociability and
safety. I well remember Colonel Morris, an old infantry officer, who was going
with his family to the Post at Eagle Pass, then Fort Duncan. The first night out
we stopped in Castroville, at the hotel kept by Madame Tardee, a typical French
hostess. Our party was large enough to occupy the whole of the second floor, the
ceilings and partitions of which were all of thin cotton cloth. We only realized
the force of this economical arrangement after some unguarded conversation had
set the entire party to suppressed giggling and whispering. There were young men
and maidens along, and we had altogether a very pleasant journey. I remember
Colonel Morris and his family as being especially kind to us. He was an old
veteran, who had seen much service, and gave my wife much good advice as to her
frontier life, which at Fort Inge was rough enough.

The only event of interest to me while commanding H Company at Fort Inge was a
riotous outbreak on the part of some of the men. The company, from long idleness
and isolation, had become quite careless of duty, and many of them would drink
at the cutler's more than was good for them. They were encouraged to discipline
by the laundresses of the company, of whom there were four of the lowest
specimens of their class east of the Rio Grande; and their houses were often
scenes of the most outrageous disorder. One night about eleven o'clock the first
sergeant, a huge ne'er-do-well, came to my quarters in great excitement and
reported that a number of the worst men in the troop had taken possession of one
of the laundresses' houses, were drunk and violent, and threatened to kill any
man who attempted to enter.

I snatched up my sabre and revolver and hastened with the trembling sergeant to
the scene of the outbreak, where I found the rioters had beaten off the guard
and had scattered to their quarters, except one violent fellow named O'Donnel,
one of the worst men in the troop, who had gone in the other direction. Taking a
corporal with me, I went in pursuit of him. The moon was full, and the sky was
clear, and we soon found our man crouched in a potato patch several hundred
yards below the stable. As I hailed him and ordered him to come in, he arose and
started to run. I fired and he dropped at the shot, and when I reached his side
he was as ghastly a picture of a dead man as I have ever seen. He lay upon his
back with fixed and staring eyes, gasping in a dreadful way. My feelings were
fearfully wrought up, and I would have given my right hand to recall the
last half minute. I turned him over, and examined him to find his wound, when,
to my great joy, he said, “You haven't hit me bad, Lieutenant,” and showed me
the slight mark of my bullet. As he started to rise, he caught his foot in the
potato vine and fell prone, with his stomach fair upon the sharp stump of a
sapling, which knocked the life out of him for
the time. I had him carried to the hospital, and never again had any trouble
with that company. Next day all of the laundresses were put into a wagon and
hauled away, bag and baggage, and deposited at a settlement far beyond the
limits of the government reservation.

In the course of a few months, I was promoted to be first lieutenant of B
Company, then stationed at Fort Ewell, the most unhealthy and comfortless of all
our frontier posts. I took my wife down to San Antonio, then the most populous
and attractive town in the State, and leaving her there in the care of
that able and excellent man, Dr. Heerf, who still stands at the head of his
profession, I set out in sad spirits for my place of banishment. The route lay
for more than one hundred miles over a very desolate region, then scarcely
inhabited, and frequently traversed by bands of hostile Indians. I had no escort
but one smart young Rifleman, who took care of my horses. The quartermaster gave
me a wagon, the teamster of which was the most extraordinary coward I have ever
met with. He died many deaths between San Antonio and the Nueces.

Two or three traders from Camargo on the Rio Grande came to me on setting out
and proposed that for mutual defence and sociability we should travel together.
We should then have a party of five well-armed men, not counting the teamster,
and in those days five well-armed Americans were a match for five times as many
Indians, who had no weapons but bows and spears. It often happened out there
that one or two white men kept bands of Indians at bay till succor came, or the
Indians abandoned the attack. They would lose many warriors for a good herd of
horses, but not one for only a few. I had with me then a very fine bay mare and
also a very fleet black Spanish horse. I rode that mare once ninety-eight
miles in twenty-four hours, galloping all the way. We rode into San Antonio
fresh as daisies, the mare and I.

At the Rio Frio I fell ill, and my fellow-travellers left me there, for they
cared not to tarry in that dangerous locality. As I grew worse, I sent my
Rifleman on to Fort Ewell, thirty miles, for the doctor and remedies, while I
lay all night at the ford of the Rio Frio with no help or companion but that
white-livered teamster, whose fright was so ludicrous as to amuse me in spite
of my sufferings. During the night a lion came prowling into our little camp,
and the teamster retired to my tent, where I induced him to fire my gun, which
sounded as loud as a cannon. At last I grew so much worse that I decided not to
wait for the doctor, but set out at daylight for Fort Ewell. The road was bad,
but I travelled in the wagon, being unable to sit my horse. The teamster cracked
his whip and struck a trot, looking all the while around the horizon for
Indians, and never slacked his gait until we met my Rifleman hastening back to
me with a buggy. There was no ambulance at the Post, and the surgeon could not
leave, so he sent his buggy for me with medicines and a kind letter of
advice. The buggy was a delightful change from the hard-going wagon, the
remedies acted promptly, and the arrival of a reinforcement in the person of the
Rifleman revived the teamster's spirits wonderfully, and we soon trotted over
the distance to Fort Ewell. In all my experience, I have never seen so
desolate and uncomfortable a place, and my heart was light, when, in a few days,
the doctor sent me back to San Antonio with a sick certificate, whence General
Persifer Smith sent me home on sick leave.

CHAPTER VII

Philadelphia Hospitality - The Wreck of the Steamship San Francisco -
An Expedition to New Mexico under General Persifer Smith - Incidents of the
March - The Beauty of the Wild Rose Pass - Hunting Adventures -
Peculiarities of the Game of the Country - Encounters with the Apaches - Odd
Characters - Arrival at Laredo

WE went to Philadelphia, where my wife was, under the care of the great and good
Dr. Meigs, who was not only chief of living physicians, but one of the most
charming of raconteurs. His visits were tri-weekly; but when he came he was
prepared to sit nearly an hour with us, entertaining us with his instructive and
delightful talk. I remember, as an evidence of his thoughtful kindness, that he brought one day from his own house an exquisite Madonna to brighten my wife's
room, and hung it where she could see it from her bed. When our stay in
Philadelphia was ended, I went to his house and asked him for his bill. He
showed a desire to make no charge at all for his services, but finally said in a
pleasant way: “I know how proud you army men are, and you will be angry if I
charge you nothing. I am in great need of a twenty-dollar gold piece, and if
you have one about you, I will thank you for it.” I had one and many more which
I had expected to pay him.

People were very kind to us in Philadelphia, especially the families of Biddle
and Gilpin. During our stay there the lamentable wreck of the steamship San Francisco
occurred. A widespread anxiety prevailed in our whole country, for
upon her was a whole regiment of United States artillery, en route to California
round the Horn. By the breaking off of the upper deck, Colonel Washington,
Captain Taylor, and several hundred officers and men were swept away. The hull
was left drifting, with hundreds of the men, women, and children of the
regiment, - where, no man could say.

My uncle, Lieutenant M. F. Maury, had then announced his theories about the wind
and currents of the sea, and was at the head of the National Observatory.
Humboldt had declared him the discoverer of a new science. On him the Secretary
of the Navy called to locate the position of the San Francisco, and direct the
course of the ship to be sent to her rescue. I well remember the honest pride
with which he wrote me how they found the wreck just where he showed it ought to
be, and saved the hundreds of survivors; among them Lieutenant Frank Murray, who
won grateful acknowledgment for his heroic conduct and gentle care of the
helpless women and children, in recognition of which the people of Philadelphia
gave him a service of silver.

I took my wife to her home at “Cleveland,” her father's country seat, and went
my way to Texas again, arriving at Corpus Christi in time to join General
Persifer Smith on his expedition up into New Mexico. He had an escort of one
hundred Riflemen, made up of ten men from each company, under the command of
Captain John G. Walker. I commanded the artillery, viz., one mountain howitzer
and twelve men. Lieutenant E. A. Carr, lately promoted to brigadier, Lieutenant
Alfred Gibbs, aide-de-camp, and Assistant-Surgeon McParlan completed our command.

General Persifer Smith had been our first colonel, and
all who remember him at Monterey and on “Scott's line” from Vera Cruz to the
city of Mexico will agree that he was a fine specimen of a soldier and a man. In
the day of battle he perhaps had no superior in our army. His courage was of the
highest order, his attainments were varied, his professional information
was excellent, his judgment was sound, his plans were always formed promptly and
executed boldly, and he had under all circumstances complete control of his
resources. Those who knew General Smith only after disease had sapped the vigor
of his faculties can form little idea of him as he was when first appointed
colonel of the Rifles. He was then the illustration of a brave and hardy
soldier, and courteous, high-spirited gentleman. Had he no claim upon history
beside Contreras, he would still rank with the best commanders America has
produced. His success in that affair was achieved by a small force over the
Mexican army in strong position. His confidence in his troops and in the
soundness of his plans was strikingly illustrated by the composure with which he
drew out his watch as he saw his Rifles moving to the assault, and when the last
Mexican had left the redoubt or surrendered, announced to the officers around
him, “It has taken just seventeen minutes.”

He marched with a large wagon train to carry forage for our horses, for we were
to be gone nearly four months, and could not expect to find adequate pasturage
along our route. We arose at 3 A. M., marched at 4.30, and halted for camp on the
best water we could find, averaging thirty-three miles daily throughout the
march.

One day, having missed our watering-place, we continued the march till 10 P.M.,
camping on Lympia Creek, in the mouth of the Wild Rose Pass. At Fort Davis, upon
the Lympia, we halted, where was a great spring
of fresh, delicious water and excellent grass. From this camp General Smith went
off toward the Rio Grande.

Soon after Baldy Smith proposed to me to take a good escort and make up a party
of officers and go down the Pass to the Sierra Prieta, a lofty peak which rose
at the mouth of the gorge above all the surrounding mountains. Game abounded all
about us, and I well remember that Lieutenants Dodge and Cole and myself killed
over eighty ducks, mostly blue-winged teal, that day, so we had a bountiful
supper. Dr. Guild was one of our party, afterward chief medical officer of the
army of northern Virginia. All was quiet outside our camp during the night,
while in the great Sibley tent we passed a jolly time.

Early next morning, leaving a strong guard in camp, we commenced the ascent of
the mountain along whose base ran a deep trail made by the Apaches on their way
to and from their permanent camp, twenty miles distant. The ascent was the
work of several hours. We rode until our horses could go no further, and then
dismounting, we all, seven in number, raced for the top. I forbear to say who
first waved his bandanna from the summit. Around the crown of this singular peak
arose a precipice of basaltic rock some thirty feet high, after surmounting
which we found ourselves upon a smooth plateau nearly a mile across. Upon it
were grass and herbs, and a rabbit bounced up here and there and scudded away
from us. To this day I have never been able to decide how those rabbits got up
there, or why.

Baldy Smith pointed out to us the Apache camp, in which two years before he,
with William Henry Whiting, Dick Howard, and Policarpio, their guide, were
carried prisoners, and held until the chiefs decided whether to kill them or
not. Happily, after a solemn council it was determined
to release them. “Polly,” as he was known, was a famous Mexican guide and
hunter, as brave and faithful as any man upon the plains. When last in Texas I
heard of him as an eloquent Baptist preacher.

When we descended, we found in the trail the fresh pony-tracks of two Indian
scouts, so we kept very quiet in camp till after full dark, when we harnessed up
and drove ten miles on our homeward way as fast as we could go, and halted for
the night in the road. Once during the night the sentinel quietly called us.
Some animal, probably a grizzly, was moving along the mountain side not far
above us. We were astir early next morning, and were soon back in our camp upon
the Lympia. The First Infantry had arrived by this time and established itself
in Fort Davis, situated in a beautiful canon in the mountains, with a deep,
cold, gushing spring just at its mouth.

The next party that went down that Lympia Cañon did not fare as well as we did.
Like ourselves, they went partly for the pleasure of the trip and partly to
report as to the whereabouts of the Indians, but none of them came back to
recite the incidents of the expedition; for they were surprised in their camp
and all murdered by those Apaches.

I have never seen anything in America more beautiful than the Wild Rose Pass,
where for near twenty miles the bright Lympia finds its way along the base of
the precipices, over one thousand feet high, or through lovely meadows which
stretch away for miles over slopes dotted with patches of fine timber.
The morning we first entered it, Baldy Smith and I rode together, and noted with
delight how the morning sunshine touched the tops of those high cliffs, and
bathed them in innumerable tints of crimson and violet and gold. We used to
believe when we visited the Dusseldorf Gallery, and noted the landscapes hanging
there, that such coloring was the invention of the painter; but no painter yet
has ever equalled nature, and in the Wild Rose Pass she has spread her most
beautiful colors. I remember once to have heard an artist of merit discussing
this very question of the inadequacy of the painter's palette to reproduce the
hues of nature. “People are prone,” he said, “to criticise landscapes and
say they are exaggerated in color, but if any one will try to reproduce a
sunrise or a sunset he will realize the difficulty of portraying upon one small
canvas the brilliant and beautiful tints which nature continually spreads out
before us.”

We rested well and long in that delightful camp upon the Lympia. I was the
hunter of our mess, and was often tempted to stray too far from camp alone. I
had a great ambition to encounter a grizzly, as we called the fierce, brown
bears of that region, and one evening I had gone alone down into the cañon in
search of partridges and teal. One barrel of my gun was charged with number six,
and the other held nine buckshot for Indians. I had gone some distance down into
the cañon, when I observed that the sun was low and I must hasten back to camp.
On my homeward way I came upon the track of a huge grizzly, who had crossed the
road only a few minutes before, and must at that moment have been within two
hundred paces of me. When I viewed that footprint, two feet long, and knew the
foot that made it was close by, I quickened my own pace for camp, and
did not feel that I was called upon to “project” with bears like that. I had
several times caused apprehension by long absences alone, and at last Walker
insisted that I should not go out again without an escort, and gave me two fine
young Riflemen, Bryan and Davis, for my companions, who were good hunters, and
added much to my pleasure and comfort.

One day while hunting alone on some lagoons seven or eight miles from the camp,
I crawled upon some geese and bagged three with one barrel while they were upon the water, and two with the second barrel as they rose. They flew half a mile
and settled upon the bare prairie, whither I followed them and got three more,
and hastened back to camp with my horse covered with geese and ducks, which I
liberally distributed among the ladies of the First Infantry, who had just
arrived from their long march to occupy Fort Davis. This was probably the best
game they had tasted for a month or more.

Soon after this we set out for El Paso, and on the second or third day were met
by a man who told us with great vociferation how the Indians had run off fifty
head of his cattle from Eagle Springs, and begged the general to aid him in
recovering them. His nickname was “Talking” Campbell. In those early days of
Texas, men were named from some personal peculiarity, and we had then living
“Big-foot” Wallace, a tremendous, good-natured fellow from Rockbridge County,
Virginia. On my first introduction to him I could not perceive any unusual size
in his feet, and was informed that he acquired his cognomen honestly in
battle, having slain a famous Indian chief known as “Big Foot.” Then there was
“Deaf” Smith, who once, when General Houston ordered his army to lie down that
they might be the better protected from the Mexican cannon, looked around him,
and, seeing the smoke and flame of the Mexican guns and all his comrades prone
upon the ground, did not tarry there a moment longer, but, turning, fled and
reported all killed but himself. It was said that for years “Deaf” Smith was
engaged in single combats because of this experience in his first great battle.
Few men dared to mention San Jacinto or Sam Houston in his presence.

Then there was “Stuttering” Lane, a capital good fellow from San Antonio,
who had many funny jokes upon himself suggested by his infirmity. When asked why
a certain lady did not marry him after promising to do so, he stammered out that
she was going to marry him, till a certain “damn-fool-busybody” told her
he stuttered! Another was our friend then present with us, and no man who ever
met “Talking” Campbell ever had occasion to inquire why he was so called any
more than he would have had in interviewing “Stuttering” Lane. But “Talking”
Campbell was full of fight, and delighted when Captain Walker with forty
Riflemen was ordered to follow and recover his cattle; he insisted upon going
along. Young Frank Armstrong, General Smith's step-son, afterwards a very
distinguished general himself, also obtained permission to go, and Lieutenant
Carr was of the party.

The Indians had more than twenty-four hours' start, and had driven the cattle at
headlong speed and left a broad trail straight to their stronghold in the
mountains, whither Walker followed and found them in their village, where a
sharp fight ensued. One Rifleman was killed, and Carr was wounded with an arrow
in the abdomen, as was Captain Van Buren, who died of his wound on the seventh
day after he received it. It seemed a mere incision, so slight that neither Van
Buren nor the surgeons felt any anxiety about it. He was sitting up, laughing
and talking with his comrades, and apparently well, when an artery burst,
and he died in a few minutes. This made us anxious about Carr's wound, but he
soon recovered from it and lived to be mainly instrumental in defeating Van Dorn
at Elk Horn in 1862. The cattle had been cut up and distributed, and all Walker
could do was to kill a few Indians and destroy their village.

We pursued our march, and he rejoined us in the course of a few days. Campbell's
herd was of fifteen hundred head, which he was driving across to California. The
night of their halt at Eagle Springs very few of them got any water, and they
were driven on to the Rio Grande, thirty miles distant. At fifteen miles from
the spring we came upon the first dead cattle. When within sight and smell of
the river, they made a grand rush for the water, and lay dead in piles. We
afterwards heard that he got safely to market with the balance and made a good
profit. We never saw “Talking” Campbell again, or any man equal to him in
his peculiar line.

We reached El Paso in the very height of the grape season. Never had we tasted
such delicious grapes, and the wine made from them was very good. But our relish
for it was not enhanced when we saw the process of its manufacture. Under a
dirty shed a bull's hide was hung by the legs. In it were put many bushels
of grapes, and also a dirty, bare-legged Mexican, who, stripped to his knees,
was actively pressing the juice with his feet, which had not been intentionally
washed before in a long time, not since the last grape season. We were assured
it was the best way to make good wine, but we did not try any of that. From El
Paso we went up to Fort Filmore, where for the last time I met my friend,
Barnard Bee. When we parted, he gave me a very curious and massive ring made of
several different colors of the gold of that country. It was stolen out of my
dressing-case soon after his death.

We then retraced our route to San Antonio, laying in a good supply of grapes and
watermelons for our mess and a good store also for the wife of Captain Granger,
who had entertained us very kindly upon our upward march. Captain Granger
commanded a small detachment of
infantry, twenty-eight men, stationed at a famous Indian crossing on Devil's
River. There was no defence whatever, and an Indian arrow could at any time have
pierced the cotton walls of Mrs. Granger's tent, but she seemed secure and
contented in her isolated home. There was not a white man within hundreds
of miles. Soon after we passed, a soldier was shot dead with an arrow, close to
her tent, but no other casualty occurred there until a year or two later.
General Hood, then a lieutenant, had a hard fight with a band of Indians
thereabouts. He and several of his men were wounded, and some were killed; the
Indians got rather the best of the cavalrymen that time. Hood was a very
daring and ambitious man, but very unfortunate as a commander. Devil's River was
far too beautiful a stream to have so bad a name. It was very like the
Shenandoah in the great valley of Virginia. It was clear and very grateful
to the sight and taste of the weary and thirsty men and horses who sought it
from far and wide.

While we were at Fort Inge, Colonel Crittenden marched, with two or three
squadrons, up the Nueces, scouting after a large body of Indians. The weather
was very hot and dry; the springs were gone, and water could be found only in
the larger streams. He marched from the Nueces across to Devil's River,
and for three days neither man nor horse had one drop of water. As they
approached Devil's River, they rode amongst some thousands of wild turkeys,
trotting along the same road after water. Their wings were hanging off from
their bodies, and their mouths were wide open. They paid no attention to the
troops, merely opening out to let them pass, and the men had no desire
to molest them. Neither man nor horse died of that terrible suffering, and never
was Devil's River more welcome, than when on the morning of the third day they
rode into its pleasant waters.

We saw many upland plover upon our march, and found them always on the burned
places of the prairie. They found in them the roasted grass seed upon which they
love to feed, and on which they grow fat and delicious in flavor. For the first
time, I shot the black partridge, the moreno, the best of the five varieties of
that bird I found in this region. Their crops were always filled with small nuts
resembling beechnuts, which they find at the roots of a grass growing upon the
mountain side. They are very game, lie close and fly strong, and are tender and
juicy, being one or two ounces heavier than the Virginia partridge.

Our march ended at San Antonio, where I turned in my artillery and went to join
my company at Fort McIntosh, Laredo. The headquarters of the regiment were
there, with one squadron, also seven or eight companies of infantry and one
company of artillery. Laredo, a Mexican town, was a mile away. Occasionally,
Colonel Loring, one of the kindest and best and bravest of men, gave a fandango
at his quarters, and invited some of the élite of Laredo to meet our officers
and their families. But there was no cordial association possible between people
who did not understand each other's language. My resource was hunting, and, a
few days before Christmas, Colonel Loring proposed that we should make up a
party and go thirty miles or so away, where we could find plenty of deer, and
bring in some venison for Christmas. Captain Tom Claiborn and Lieutenant
Tom English were of the party.

In every company there were several hunters, who scouted the country for game,
and sometimes brought in reports of Indians. In our party there were seven of
us, who in four days killed thirty-six deer and a lion, all of which we shot
with the Mississippi rifle. In one day we
brought in sixteen deer and the lion. We lived upon the tid-bits and fore
quarters of the deer, which Tom Claiborn knew well how to cook over a camp-fire,
while he seasoned his culinary efforts with racy anecdotes of his experiences in
Oregon and on the great overland route of the regiment.

Late one afternoon, we had all come in from our day's hunt, when we heard
partridges whistling close by. Lieutenant English had a handsome black setter
puppy, which he had taught some tricks of a poodle, and which he had named
Toots. Claiborn took Toots with him and went in pursuit of the partridges. He
had a fine Manton gun, and before sunset he bagged twenty-two birds, without
missing a shot. Toots behaved so well that Claiborn convinced English that he
ought to give the dog to me, which he did, only stipulating his name should not
be changed. For more than ten years, he was one of my family. He had his mouth
on every kind of game that ever wore fur or feathers. He fought with my
greyhounds in many a wolf hunt, whipped every bulldog that ever attacked him,
was bitten by a rattlesnake, and sprinkled by a polecat, and had as much sense
as many men, and more principle. It was while he was hunting with me one
day that he was bitten by a rattler. I burned the place with gunpowder, and
carried him as quickly as I could to a doctor. Toots had never seen him before,
but he allowed him to cut away the flesh and burn him with caustic, only
whining softly from the extreme pain. Some months after this, he got into a
fight and was bitten on the same foot. I was away when it happened, and he went
by himself to that same doctor, and sitting upon his haunches, as he
had been taught to do, held up the injured foot for the doctor's inspection and
treatment.

CHAPTER VIII

Big Game Hunting in Texas - Encounter with an American Lion - Exciting
Fight with a Wild Bull - Pierced with Cactus Spikes - Fierce Battle with a
Wounded Cow - On Recruiting Service at Carlisle Barracks - New Tactics
for Mounted Rifles - The May Family - Sad Results of a Duel

AFTER this Christmas hunt, I found occupation in scouting and drilling, and in making a new system
of tactics for mounted troops. The general introduction of the revolver and long-range rifle
called for such changes in cavalry tactics as would enable the men to dismount quickly and use their
rifles on foot, and demanded also single-rank formations. The working out of these problems
occupied my thoughts and interests for a long time, and I had favorable opportunity for testing every
movement, having charge of the instruction of my company, and the good-will of my intelligent
brother-officers, though occasionally a sneer would reach me from some leather-head of the old dragoon
régime, who did not wish to have to learn new tactics (they generally didn't know much of any).
But I persevered with my work, won friends to it of all who saw it tried, and had the satisfaction of
having it adopted by the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, who, being a great hunter and rifleman
himself, knew that weapon could only be used effectively on foot, and that the time had come for
moving horsemen to where they could be dismounted and could thus render efficient service.

By this new system of tactics, a troop of Mounted Rifles could be moving at the gallop, and when the
trumpet sounded, “Dismount to fight,” could halt, link their horses, and be handling their rifles in line of
battle in seven seconds. McClellan, who had been inspecting the cavalry systems of Europe, wrote me
warm congratulations upon my great success. The tactics were used in both armies during the Civil War,
and have been universally adopted in the Indian fighting upon the plains, and have very recently been
embodied in the New Tactics.

As I have said, hunting was my only pleasure in Texas. In that day there were no settlements upon that vast
region between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. It was a great pasture for thousands of wild horses, and
wild cattle, deer, antelope, and every game bird we know of, and every sort of predatory beast. The tigers,
or great, spotted panthers, as large sometimes as Bengal tigers, and the tawny, maneless lions, and many
small varieties of the cat tribe abounded there. Nowhere, save in South Africa, were such quantities of large
game to be found.

One day while patrolling that region, we encamped on sweet water in a grassy valley, and in the evening I
went out for venison, having told the guide, Juan Galvan, a famous Indian scout, to follow me. When about
a mile from camp I saw a deer and two fawns, as I thought them to be, enter the chaparral before me. I
galloped rapidly around to the other side of the timber, to get a shot at the game as it emerged from it,
when what was my delight to see a large lion come sauntering out on the prairie, moving
up the wind with his nose
well up and his long tail brushing the grass as he walked slowly along. The breeze blew fresh and the grass
muffled my horse's tracks, as I cantered up to within fifty paces. Then I halted and drew a fine sight upon
him behind his shoulder, but my horse moved, and I had to lower my rifle.
I had just quieted him and taken aim again, when the guide with a clatter came galloping
up behind me. The lion, surprised, wheeled toward me, when I dashed at him
with a shout which made him turn and bound away. I tried to close, and get a running shot,
but he outran my slow troop horse and went away with great leaps till he reached
the chaparral. Had my rifle been a Winchester, or had I been upon my own horse,
I would have dismounted and taken a sure shot, but on a previous day this brute had
run off from me when I dismounted to shoot, and I did not feel justified in being left alone
to encounter that great beast with a Mississippi rifle. I was greatly provoked with
the guide, but he had run up to help me, was a very daring fellow, and very fond of me.

Soon after this, the grass near Fort McIntosh being used up, it was necessary to send our
horses down the river for fresh pasturage, so that they might be in
condition for the summer scouting. Tom Claiborn was captain of B Company, and
Llewellyn Jones, captain of F Company. Claiborn's wife and children were domiciled in
the garrison, and Jones' health was infirm, so I took the squadron two days' march down the
Rio Grande, where we made a comfortable camp, and grazed our horses and
hunted for more than a month. We were too far from the fort to draw our fresh meat and
rations. Wild cattle abounded about us, and each company had good
hunters, and every night they brought in fat beeves, unbranded and as wild and savage as any
other wild
beasts in that region. When Mexico dethroned the last Emperor, Iturbide,
and established a republic, the garrisons in what is now Texas were all withdrawn. The
Indians then poured in upon the large ranches, murdered the people, and turned the stock
loose. These had increased and multiplied till the whole of the region
between the Rio Grande and the Nueces swarmed with wild horses and cattle, and one day I
encountered a small herd of wild asses, as wild as zebras and very active.

I had heard so much of the fierceness and activity of the wild cattle, that I desired to be able
to tell by experience about the truth of these reports; so one morning, at daybreak, I set out
with Juan Galvan and two Riflemen with pack mules to bring in the meat we expected
to kill. Juan soon found the fresh trail of an enormous bull. His tracks were easily followed,
for amidst the thousands his were larger than any. It was about eleven o'clock when Juan, who
was riding at a fox trot just in my front, threw up his rifle and fired at a huge, white bull who
broke out of the brush and ran off at a rapid gait. After two hours of hot pursuit, we came up
with this monarch of the herds in a thick clump of bushes, where Juan and I
dismounted, and, running up to within thirty or forty paces, fired into his great, white body.
The brush was too thick for us to pick our shots. He ran out near the Riflemen, both of whom
fired at him, but he kept on his way at a swinging gait. The blood in great splashes fell
upon the broad cactus leaves, and made the trail easy to follow, and excited us, as the sight of
blood will affect any hunter.

Again, after half an hour's pursuit, we came upon our
bull, and as before, Juan and I dismounted and ran up to
put two more balls into him. There was more blood
now upon the trail, and we were more eager, so that when
we found him the third time at bay, I resolved to make a
sure shot, and, running closer to him than ever before,
delivered it. Old Juan was too smart to dismount, though I
had not observed this. As my rifle cracked, I heard the
bushes rattling, and the men cried out, “Look out, Lieutenant! He is charging you!”
I wheeled and ran for my horse, but the bull was too close for me to stop to mount,
so as I heard him close at my heels, I turned suddenly towards a huge cactus I was passing
and sprang into it, struggling through it and tumbling flat upon the ground
upon the other side. In all my life I had never been so terrified, and I was so tormented
by the great cactus spikes which had pierced my body, that for an instant I
would have welcomed the bull or anything else that would have relieved me of my misery.

After some moments, I ventured to arise and investigate the whereabouts
of that animal, an action which I immediately regretted; for he instantly saw me and
made another dash for me, the men crying as he did so, “He's charging again!”
I whirled through another cactus, the twin of the one I had just left, and lay as flat and still
as a dead man; and I almost wished that I was dead, for in my flight I had acquired a second
supply of cactus spikes, which left no part of my body unprovided for. They are of
the size of a large darning needle, with barbed points, and when one is pulled out it leaves
the barb in to mark the place.

Juan, having more sense and experience with bulls than I, had never taken his foot out
of the stirrup, and now dashed off after my horse, which had availed itself of the
opportunity to run away. The Riflemen, too, had retired to a safe distance, so that
when, after a longer
delay than before, I arose very cautiously and inspected the field, I alone remained upon it.
My rifle was empty, and all of my friends were gone, and, utterly demoralized, I
stood wondering what had ever induced me to imagine
that I wished to hunt a wild bull. One cheerful fact gave
me courage: the bull was gone with the rest, but alas! the
cactus spikes remained.

I reloaded my rifle, picked out some of the most
accessible of them, and tried to rally my spirits and look
cheerful as Juan rode up, leading my horse and crying out
in a gay voice, “Vamos!”

“Vamos where?” said I.

“Por el toro.”

“Damn the toro,” I responded heartily, as with a poor
assumption of lively acquiescence, I took my seat where
the late General Pope had his headquarters. As a good
many spikes still remained, that saddle was far from being
a downy pillow. But I wriggled and twisted and managed
to keep up, and we soon emerged from the chaparral into
a grassy glade where a herd of cattle had been startled by
our approach. We drew up all abreast, and fired into the
herd. I struck a great brindled bull, but permitted him to
pass on, for just then bulls were a drug in my market.
Juan, however, dashed off, whirling his lasso, and
returned in ten minutes, saying, “We got him.” Two of
our shots had struck a beautiful, young sorrel cow,
breaking her fore leg. Juan having lassoed her and tied
her to the big, swinging limb of a mesquite, proposed
going on after the bull, but I preferred to remain and look
after the safety of the cow, and I told Juan that before
following up the bull, I desired him to examine the rope
and make sure the cow was securely tied. As we
approached, she charged madly at us twice, but being
thrown violently back upon
her haunches, she ceased this and remained sullenly
quiet. At last Juan slipped off his horse and went carefully
around the tree, followed slowly by the cow. Moran, one
of the Riflemen, a large, handsome fellow, had
dismounted, and stood leaning against his horse, holding
Juan's rifle and his own in his hand. Old Dewey, a very
phlegmatic Vermonter, was sitting lazily in his saddle, his
rifle across his pommel. I was quite alert, and ready to
move on short notice, should the cow decide to charge
again, which she suddenly did. The rope broke and she
dashed at Moran, goring his horse in the flank. He
dropped his rifles, and sprang up a tree. She then struck
old Dewey's horse, lifting him so that his rider pitched
over his head and, turning a somersault, landed upon his
feet, rifle in hand. Turning, he delivered a quick shot in the
cow's face, and then made for a tree, which he lost no time
in climbing. The cow now had the field to herself, for by
the time Dewey was safely ensconced, I was a rifle-shot
away, where a three-legged cow could not catch me.
Finally, Juan slipped down from his perch and gathering
up his rifle mounted his horse, and, riding up to the
animal, shot her in the curl and ended the battle.

We butchered her, and, packing the mules with the
meat, sent the men back to camp with it, while Juan and I
took another turn at our bull. We bounced him out of a
thicket a little before sunset, ran him a mile, and then gave
up the chase, and set out for camp ten miles away. It was
ten o'clock before we got in, and I was occupied until a
late hour getting rid of the cactus. Next morning I looked
as if I had the measles, and felt as if the small-pox had me.
So I declined to resume the chase that day, and kept my
headquarters in my tent, letting the indefatigable Juan go
out with a
fresh party, which found the bull where we had left off.
He charged them many times, and finally fell by the
nineteenth ball. He was an enormous beast, entirely
white, save his jet-black horns and hoofs. I had his
great hide for a tent floor. It was all we got of him,
for his wounds and heated contest had spoiled his
great mass of fat meat. But it was certainly the most
exciting contest and chase I ever enjoyed. I discovered
that day that when a bull charges, he puts his head
down, shuts his eyes, and goes straight for his enemy;
but when a cow makes the attack, she keeps her eyes
wide open and can't be dodged.

Soon after this, we were coming into camp late one
evening, when suddenly we heard a wild bull come
moaning towards us. It is the wildest sound imaginable
in a lonely place. Juan and I leaped from our
horses and hastened to meet him, concealing ourselves
behind a bush that bordered his course. As we waited,
we could hear him drawing nearer and nearer, moaning,
and crushing the gravel under his heavy tread. He had
come within ten paces when as his fore shoulders emerged
into view, I whispered, “Now!” We both fired behind
his shoulder, and Juan immediately ran for a tree, while
I, being clad in a light coat, threw myself flat down
behind my bush. As I lay there, I could hear the
hurried tramp of the bull, whether in advance or retreat
I could not decide, and the uncertainty was painfully
alarming. Happily, he had wheeled and run back at
our shot. The night closed in dark, and Juan could not
follow him till the moon rose, when he found the bloody
trail, but gave up the chase, very properly; for we were
in a dangerous neighborhood.

After three years of this sort of frontier service, I was
appointed recruiting officer at San Antonio. General
Albert Sidney Johnston, commanding the department
of Texas, was our next neighbor there, and a very good
one he was. That accomplished soldier, Don Carlos
Buel, was also stationed there. General George Mercer
Brooke, one of the bravest men and highest gentlemen
in the service, died there. He was my friend and our
only kinsman in that wild country.

While in San Antonio, Major Dick Howard and I
purchased a cattle ranch on the Cibolo River, about
twenty-five miles from the town. The house was an
unusually good one for that time in Texas, being built
of hewn logs, well plastered and floored. It stood upon
a hill in a fine grove overlooking the road from San
Antonio to the Gulf. We had fifteen hundred head of
breeding cattle, and proposed to send into Mexico for
one hundred mares, and to raise mules, and I intended
to resign and live on the ranch. But my wife's health
and spirits so gave way under the affliction and exhaustion
consequent upon the death of our little daughter,
that I decided, instead, to accept a detail on the recruiting service
which took me to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. When the war broke out I sold my ranch, doubling my money in Confederate gold bonds.

On arriving at Carlisle, then our only cavalry school,
Colonel Charley May, the commandant, appointed me
the superintendent of instruction and commandant of
the Post. The duty and station were agreeable and
comfortable. All of the young cavalry graduates from
West Point reported to me for duty, and I thus became
well acquainted with many of the brightest young men
of the army. Fitz Lee, Averill, Lomax, Big Jim Major,
“Red Jackson,” and many others were there, whom it
was my fortune to serve with or against in the great war,
which none of us then realized was so near at hand.

The shooting about there was very good. Mr. Johnston
Moore, an excellent gentleman, a real sportsman, and the
owner of many farms in the vicinity, was often my
companion. A comfortable dinner at his town residence,
with a bottle of good champagne, made an appropriate
ending to many a pleasant day's sport. At that time he had
a beautiful daughter, who was a great favorite socially,
especially with the young officers. No man's lot seemed
happier than his. Twenty years afterward I met him at the
Virginia Springs. Time and sorrow had written deep lines
upon his manly face. His daughter was dead, his son had
fallen in the war, and many griefs had been his portion,
but the gentle, affectionate nature was with him still, and I
was tempted to go with him once again over the green
fields and wooded hills of the Cumberland valley, where
so often, with our guns and dogs, we had borne each
other company. But it would not have been the same, for
sorrowful memories of the years which lay between would
have dimmed the sunshine of the reunion for us.

While at Carlisle I was authorized by Secretary of War
Floyd to prepare and publish the “Tactics for Mounted
Rifles.” Major Buel aided me to procure personal
interviews with the Secretary, who entered earnestly into
a system which facilitated the mounted riflemen in going
effectively into action; and at that time all of our so-called
cavalrymen were mounted riflemen. My clandestine
interviews with the Secretary were not discovered in the
Red Tape Department until the “Tactics” was adopted
and published, when the admonition was administered
from the chief of that department to “observe the
prescribed channels of correspondence in future.” This
much amused Buel and me.

This suggested to me the expediency of merging the
five regiments of mounted troops in one corps. The three
senior regiments united in a memorial to Congress to
arrange us accordingly, but it was not done till the great
war put aside all personal considerations, for expediency's
sake, and in both armies the mounted troops were all
classed as cavalry, - a misnomer, if by cavalry we mean
soldiers who fight on horseback; for it is well known that
the troopers of Stuart and Hampton, Van Dorn and
Forrest, all dismounted to fight. Sabres have long been
laid aside except by holiday soldiers, not one in fifty of
whom is a swordsman. It was usual for our men in the
Rifles to put away their swords whenever they went upon
a hostile expedition, and in our great war, in which many
thousands of men were killed and wounded, our surgeons
were rarely troubled by sabre cuts.

Colonel Charley May, our commandant, was a “Light
Dragoon,” although, being six feet four inches tall and of
tremendous frame, he was fitter for the heavy cavalry. His
brother Julian was in my regiment, and was a remarkably
handsome man. He, too, was over six feet in stature.
Those Mays were extraordinary men in their physical and
mental characteristics. Five of the brothers averaged over
six feet three inches in height, and all were men of marked
character. The Honorable Henry May, a member of
Congress from Baltimore, was a man of ability, and of
most kind and courtly manners. In the exciting times
incident to the disrupting of the government, Mr. May
stood up manfully for the rights of the people. I believe he
was imprisoned for it. I was thrown intimately with
Colonel May for two years, at Carlisle Barracks, and on me
devolved the sad duty of paying the last honors of a dead
soldier to his brother Julian.

Julian May's history was a very sad one. He was the
youngest of the sons of Dr. May, a leading physician of
Washington in his day. Before he was twenty-one, Julian
became involved in a difficulty with young Cochran. Both
were connected with well-known families in Washington,
and the duel was the recognized mode of settling personal
difficulties between gentlemen. This barbarous custom
had the sanction of the highest men of our country in
those days, and it was considered inevitable that these
two youths should resort to it. So they crossed the river
into Virginia, and fought with rifles at forty paces.
Cochran was shot in the head, and died instantly, and
Julian May became a fugitive, his life and happiness
ruined. Those who knew him best realized that he never
recovered from this terrible experience.

General Jackson had then retired to the shades of the
Hermitage, where he was passing the evening of his days.
He was a friend of the May family, and naturally
sympathized with young Julian in his sad position. At his
request, the position of lieutenant was given the young
man in the regiment of Mounted Riflemen, then just
organized in time for the Mexican War. From 1848 to 1860,
when his death occurred, Julian May was in all the
vicissitudes of the service of that regiment, and his genial
and kindly nature made him a favorite with his comrades
throughout the army. His remarkable personal beauty was
enhanced by a courtly breeding and bearing which
distinguished him in every circle he entered. He died
suddenly at Tucalote, while returning from Santa Fe to his
post at Fort Union. We laid him in the little soldiers'
cemetery on the hillside overlooking the Post. I
commanded the escort at his funeral, and read the service
of the Church at his grave.

Charley May had long been married to a daughter of
Mr. George Law, of New York, when the war broke out.
He then resigned from the army and retired to private life.
While his sympathies were with his own people in the
South, he could not array himself against the people of
his wife, who was a very admirable lady, to whom he was
much attached.

William May, of the Navy, was the only one of the
brothers not over six feet in stature. He was highly
esteemed in the service, and had the manhood of his race.
Captain William Lewis Maury, of the Confederate cruiser
Georgia, who was his shipmate in the old Navy, told me
that on one occasion May was sent off in command of a
boat which was wrecked upon a reef. They found refuge
upon the rocks, to which they clung till a launch from the
ship came to their rescue. There was not room in the
launch for all of the men to go at once, so May and part
of the crew got aboard of her, but as she pulled away
from the reef, he saw some of his men still on the rocks,
and before he could be prevented he sprang overboard
and swam back to cast his lot with them. They were a
gallant race, those Mays; the men handsome and proud,
and the women beautiful.

While at Carlisle, I was appointed a member of a board
of cavalry officers, which decided upon a uniform style of
horse equipage for the army. Colonels Joseph E.
Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Andrew Porter, and several
others, were members of the board of which Colonel
Philip Saint George Cooke was president. After six or
seven weeks of careful examination of every item, we
adopted the Cossack saddle brought over by McClellan,
and now known by his name. It has stood the test of all
these years of service, and is generally used by all
frontiersmen.

CHAPTER IX

Across the Plains from Kansas to New Mexico - Incidents of the Long Journey -
A Paradise for the Hunter of Antelope and Buffalo - A Buffalo Hunt ending
in a Sad Tragedy - Skirmishes with Hostile Indians - Surprise and Defeat
for the Comanches - The Record of the Rifles

MEANWHILE the Rifles had been transferred to the
department of New Mexico, when I was
appointed regimental adjutant, and ordered to Fort Union,
the headquarters of the regiment. A number of officers en route
to their commands, and two hundred cavalry recruits from Carlisle
went along with us, and at Fort Leavenworth a remount of four hundred
horses was turned over to me, to be distributed to the
companies at Fort Union. We remained at Fort
Leavenworth just long enough to organize our command
and prepare it for the difficult duty of convoying nearly
five hundred young cavalry horses across the desert and
through the range of predatory Indians for eight hundred
miles. The recruits had been in active drill at Carlisle for
some months, and we had a fine set of young officers not
long from West Point, who were assigned to duty with
the squadron, which was mounted on the best broken of
the remount horses, so that everything was soon in fair
marching order. The horses which were not under saddle
were driven out in strings, each string being made up of
thirty animals and placed in charge of its own squad
of men. The picket rope of the string was secured to one
end of the wagon, in which was hauled the tent of the
squad, with their clothing and rations, etc. A pair of
heavy, steady wheel horses were hitched to the wagon
and driven by the teamster. Then came the led horses in
spans, each secured by a short halter to the picket rope.
The string was led off by a pair of steady leaders, hitched
by a swingletree to the end of the picket rope, the whole
thus presenting a team of about twelve or fifteen pairs of
horses. The management of this team required no little
skill on the part of the drivers and outriders of the squad.
In the party there were a dozen or more of these strings,
and they made the Indians' mouths water, I suspect, but
they never got a horse.

In this respect we were more fortunate than an
expedition which had preceded us the year before, under
the command of Colonel Cooke. When he reached the
Comanche country, old Mancho, the chief of the tribe,
rode up one day, making overtures of peace, and
requesting an interview, which Colonel Cooke granted.
Mancho inquired of him by whose permission he
undertook to travel across the country, and what his
object there was. Cooke replied that he came by
permission of the Great White Chief in Washington, and
that he only wished to travel across the country that he
might show it to his young men. To this Mancho retorted
that it was his country, and neither the Great White Chief
nor anybody else had the right to ride over it without his
permission, but, if Cooke would give him a supply of
provisions and whiskey and tobacco, he was willing to
allow him to proceed. Cooke coolly told him to “go to
Guinea,” or its equivalent, adding that he would give him
nothing, and would ride over the country as often as he
pleased; and so the interview ended.

That night, while all the camp was wrapped in slumber,
the Comanches swooped down upon it, dashing their
horses through it at full speed, shaking their blankets and
buffalo robes, and howling like demons. As a matter of
course, every animal in Cooke's command, rendered
frantic by the uproar, stampeded, and next morning he
found himself on foot in the midst of the plains. He
remained there until able to collect enough horses to pull
his wagons to Fort Union, and he probably remembered
Mancho in wrath until his life's end.

Such an experience would have been especially
unfortunate for us, who had in our party women and
children; for several families of officers living in New
Mexico had joined our command. Happily, as I have said,
we made the trip in safety, and we marched away from
Fort Leavenworth before the middle of July, in fine health
and spirits. Our route lay through Kansas, then in the full
richness of its summer verdure, across the Kansas and
Kaw rivers, across the Walnut Creek, Pawnee Fork at Fort
Lamed, the Arkansas at old Fort Atkinson, and thence by
the Cimarron to Fort Union.

I had bought in St. Louis, for the use of my family, one
of those excellent carriages constructed for travel on the
plains, and the quartermaster at Fort Leavenworth gave
us all the wagons we needed for transporting our
furniture and supplies. After we got beyond the
settlements, wood was very rarely seen, but for fuel we
had an abundance of “buffalo-chips.” Our water supply
was far from what we should have desired, but we had to
take it as we found it, one day out of a river and the next
out of a mud hole. We were, fortunately, well supplied
with charcoal filters, and at night we would set a bucket of
muddy water on the table, drop the charcoal ball into it,
and convey the rubber tube into
the mouth of a demijohn on the floor, which was sewed
into a blanket cover and always kept thoroughly wet.
Next morning the bucket would be empty, save for a
liberal supply of dirt, and the demijohn would be filled
with clear, cool water.

Our march across the plains was very interesting. There
were six or eight travelling carriages for the families of the
married officers. These followed the advance guard, and
were followed in their turn by the Mounted Riflemen,
close behind whom came the strings of horses, and then
the rear guard. The herd of cattle and the milch cows were
sent ahead early in the morning, under the care of a small
escort. Extraordinary vigilance was necessary, for any
Indians, after passing the Kaws and Osages, might be
hostile, and four hundred fine young horses, besides
some hundreds of mules, would prove a great temptation.
We had some grouse shooting, until Council Grove was
passed, where we saw the last inhabited prairies and
entered fairly upon the great American Desert, the home
of the buffalo, the wolf, the antelope, and the wild Indian.

Orton, the wagon-master, a six-foot plainsman, was a
good hunter, and my constant companion in my many
excursions out upon the flanks of the column. My rifle
was a three-grooved Harper's Ferry barrel, mounted by
the gunsmith at Carlisle, in a common shot-gun stock,
with a wooden ramrod and horn sights. One day I
surprised Orton by cutting down a fine antelope at a great
distance. I told him to step it off, because his legs were
long and would leave no occasion for cavil at short
measure. Orton paced four hundred and seventy-five
paces to the antelope. Next day I brought down a wolf at
two hundred and twenty paces.

One morning Orton got off before I could leave the
command. We were then in the Comanche range, and
must needs be as alert as possible. When at last I was
ready to set out, I rode a long way to look for him, but
could see nothing of him. Suddenly I saw three men
galloping towards me from the direction of the column,
and, supposing they were messengers sent for me, I went
to meet them. We were in a rolling country, and as I rose
on each ridge I noticed that the horsemen veered off from
me. My horse, Black Jack, a famous hunter, became much
excited. He quickened his pace until he seemed to devour
the ground. At last, as I mounted a ridge, I came upon
three Indians crossing it at full speed, about two hundred
yards from me. I did not pursue them, but dismounted,
and fired at the only antelope I had seen that day. He was
several hundred yards off, and I was flustered by the
Indians, and by the necessity of reloading before they
could get to me, but on glancing towards them I saw that
on hearing the crack of the rifle, they had plied their quirts
and heels, and were making all speed in the other
direction.

I then hastened to where I saw, several miles away, the
dust of our column, and was surprised to learn on
reaching it that nobody had seen the Indians, nor had
Orton returned. So I rode out again to look for him, and
finally found him, but he had not seen the Indians either,
until I pointed them out to him, dismounted, on the crest
of a ridge some miles distant, whence they watched our
column. Observing our herders in charge of the milch
cattle resting on a hill not far off, we joined them, and
found the Indians had been after them. The lazy rascals
had put their rifles into a wagon, and were sauntering
along at ease, when all at once the Indians came down
upon them, and insulted them by rubbing
their arrows under their noses, turning their pockets out,
taking their tobacco, handkerchiefs, etc., and were
galloping off triumphantly when they found me in their
path. That night we doubled our guard about camp, but
saw no more of them until we came to Walnut Creek,
where we found them shooting buffalo.

Our first view of the buffalo was very exciting. There
were thousands of them, and we were marching through
them for three days, at thirty miles a day, and all day and
all night the air resounded with their bellowing. The first
one I shot lay down to die, and as I desired to get his
tongue out, I dismounted, and was marching bravely up
to the young bull, when all at once he sprang up and
dashed at me. I turned and ran toward my horse, and as I
mounted I saw the bull flat on his back, his legs quivering
in the air. Being dead sure enough this time, I got his
tongue without any further trouble or fright. Many
buffalo hunters had this experience with their first bull.

John Omahundro, of Louisa County, Virginia, was an
active scout for General Jeb Stuart during the late war.
After the war, he went back to his wild life upon the
plains. He was a remarkably handsome and pleasing
young fellow, and very expert with his lasso and arms. He
went about the country with Carver, the shooter, and was
widely known as “Texas Jack.”

One night in Montgomery, Alabama, General John G.
Walker, “Texas Jack,” and I were seated together, talking
of our experiences on the plains, and found we had all
had the same with our first buffalo. Jack had leaned over
his and struck his knife into him, when the beast sprang
up and chased him to the wagon, against which he put
his head and fell dead just as Jack had succeeded in
putting it between them. Unlike the ox
or the horse, the buffalo springs upon all four feet at
once.

We had with us a smart young sergeant, Bowman by
name, who was my companion on this run, and requested
permission to go with me when I should make
another. Next morning I saw a herd of buffalo grazing not
far off from our camp, and was about to ride after them
when Sergeant Bowman came up and, touching his cap,
asked, “Will the Captain permit me to go with him?”

“Certainly, Sergeant, I would like to have you with me.”
He then inquired, “Will the Captain permit Alphonse to
go, too?”

“No,” I said. “He can't manage his horse or his pistol,
and he may shoot himself or some one else.” But Bowman
urged that he would keep close by him, and look after him,
and finally I unfortunately yielded, and said, “Well, let
him come on.” Bowman was a very bright, pleasant,
young fellow, attentive to his duties, and a favorite with
all the officers. Alphonse was a little French soldier fresh
from Algeria. He was amiable, alert, and wholly ignorant
of the English language, and full of the excitable
enthusiasm of his race. He was very vain of his equestrian
accomplishments, supposed to have been acquired
during his African campaigns, and having been recently
unhorsed in the presence of his command, his Gallic
honor was now at stake, and he felt the importance of
vindicating among the buffaloes the horsemanship of
France.

As we cantered towards the herd, first one and then
another of the young officers galloped out from the
column, and joined us, until, to my regret, I found our
party increased to eight, nearly all inexperienced hunters,
and most of them mounted on wild horses
hardly less excitable than themselves. Alphonse was
perched on the back of a big, hard-mouthed, powerful
horse, and in his hand was an army revolver, which he
had cocked before he was in cannon range of the game.
His eyes gleamed with an eagerness that filled me with
apprehension, and my prophetic soul misgave me as I
looked at him. I halted my party in a hollow nearest the
buffalo, pointed out to them the great danger from so
large a party as ours running at once into the herd,
ordered Alphonse to uncock his pistol and return it to the
holster, and cautioned the others against either drawing
or cocking until they should have closed in upon the
buffalo.

Then, with an inward wish that I was well out of the
affair, I led the way at a gallop over the ridge and straight
for a thousand buffalo grazing four hundred yards away.
The nearest bulls wheeled with a loud grunting as soon
as we cleared the top of the ridge, and the whole herd
went off at a full gallop, we dashing after at the speed of
our horses. I was still in the lead, and had closed to within
fifty yards of the hindmost of the herd, when suddenly a
pistol cracked behind me, and a ball went singing through
the air. I knew at once it could only be the Frenchman,
and reining in my horse, I, like Mazeppa, “writhing half
my form about, hurled back my curse” at his infernal
carelessness. As I reined in my horse, the Frenchman tore
past me, his eyes wide open with excitement, as he tugged
at his bridle with both hands, in one of which was that
pistol cocked again. Close by his side rode his friend,
Bowman, as if trying to help him. They turned off toward
the right, and I pushed my horse after the herd.

I had shot two or three buffaloes, when a pistol shot
on my right attracted me, and, as I looked hastily in that
direction, I saw Bowman toss his arms wildly in the air. I
felt he was a dead man, but being in the thick of the run, it
was not till some seconds had elapsed, and his riderless
horse, pursued by Alphonse, had galloped far off into the
prairie, that I was able to follow back the trail to where my
poor sergeant lay. He was the most ghastly picture of
sudden death I have ever seen. He lay with his head
thrown back, his wide-open eyes staring at the sky, and
his clenched hands full of grass. There was not a spark of
life left in him; all had gone out in that sudden wild toss
that I had seen. The ball had entered his breast, and had
gone straight through his heart. I dismounted, and leaning
my head upon my horse's neck, I wept like a child. Only
two or three minutes before he had passed me, looking so
full of life and generous earnestness to rescue his friend,
and now he lay with that friend's bullet through his heart.
For we could only account for it by believing that, as he
leaned over in his effort to check Alphonse's horse, the
Frenchman, in his excitement, had discharged his pistol.

By the time I reached Bowman's side, all our
companions, absorbed by the chase, had disappeared,
and only the dead man and I were together on the wide
expanse of prairie. After half an hour I was relieved to see
Alphonse galloping toward me, leading the sergeant's
horse. His success in accomplishing this feat filled him
with inward satisfaction, which beamed from his face
when he came up to me; but it was instantly replaced by a
look of amazed horror, when I said, “Did you shoot this man?”
Evidently he was unconscious of having done so.
Indeed, I do not believe that he knew his pistol had gone
off at all. On examination, I found two barrels were empty.
I met Alphonse not
very long ago, and talked with him of this sad occurrence.
He says the sergeant shot himself, and evidently believes
it. Having at last succeeded in attracting one of the young
officers who had come within hail in pursuit of a cow he
had shot, I rode off to seek the column and get an
ambulance. After galloping several miles, I returned with
the surgeon and such assistants as he required, and
placed the sergeant's body in his charge. By this time all
our hunters had assembled save Lieutenant, now General,
Frank. One of the party reported to me that he had seen
Lieutenant Frank's horse throw him over his head, and
then gallop off with the buffalo, and that, though he
seemed considerably shaken up, he was evidently not
seriously hurt, for he had gone on in pursuit of his horse.
Having no confidence in the woodcraft of any of our
party, I ordered the ambulance to be driven to the top of
the highest ridge near us, to serve as a landmark for my
return, and then galloped off in the direction I had been
told Frank had taken. After going at a rapid pace for two or
three miles, I overtook that young gentleman striding
along over the prairie, pistol in hand, right away from his
friends. The soft grass of the prairie deadened the sound
of my horse's hoofs, and I was close behind him before he
knew it.

“Hallo, Frank!” I shouted, “where are you going?”

He wheeled around with an expression of intense relief,
and replied that he was making for camp.

“Where is your horse?”

“Oh, he went off with the buffalo two hours ago.”

“Is your pistol loaded?”

“No, by George! I forgot that.”

“Well, old fellow, you are in a very bad neighborhood
for an empty pistol, and you are making straight
for the Pawnee camp. Load up as quick as you can and
jump up behind me, for we must lose no time in getting
out of here.”

Black Jack was a generous horse, and soon bore us
back to where we found the melancholy group on the
hilltop anxiously watching for our return. We overtook
the column at Walnut Creek, and in a sequestered little
nook, formed by a bend of the river, we prepared a grave
for our comrade, and just as the sun was setting I read the
service of the Episcopal Church over his body, and we
left him to his rest.

In the department of New Mexico the Rifles had many
affairs with the Indians, some of them brilliant. In one of
these, Captain Alfred Gibbs was desperately wounded at
the conclusion of a most energetic pursuit and action
which had been a complete success; for the Rifles killed
every Indian in the band, and took from them all their
plunder and property. But our last Indian affair was
perhaps the most important and creditable of all our
encounters with these gentry. Colonel George B.
Crittenden, having ascertained that the Comanches were
in great force within two days' march of Fort Union,
organized with secrecy and dispatch a party of about
eighty-five Riflemen, and moved with great rapidity in
pursuit of the Indians, who had, however, gone towards
the Cimarron before he could reach their late camping-
ground. He pushed on after them, marching over a country
previously unknown to any but the Indians, and the
Mexicans who trade with them. The road was difficult and
rough. It lay through the mountains, and the weather was
bitterly cold. Still he went on, travelling night and day, and
enduring every privation, and using every precaution to
avoid discovery. On the morning of the eighth day, about
seven o'clock,
they galloped into the Comanche camp, of about one
hundred and fifty lodges.

The surprise was complete. Many of the warriors were
still rolled in their buffalo robes asleep when the first rifle
cracked. Three hundred of them were absent, hunting
buffalo, but over two hundred of them remained, and these
were fearful odds against Crittenden's attacking force,
which was only sixty Rifles, the remainder being left with
the packs. A sharp fight ensued, but a few minutes
sufficed to leave the Rifles in possession of the village.
The women and children, to the number of four or five
hundred, fled to the rocky hillside at the first alarm. The
warriors fought only long enough to cover their retreat,
and then followed their example. The Rifles remained in the
village about eight hours, actively occupied all the time in
destroying tents and stores, and maintaining a desultory
fire with the Indians on the rocks above them. The results
of this operation were thirty-five warriors killed, more than
a hundred and fifty lodges with a large amount of stores
destroyed, and forty horses captured. Not a woman or
child was hurt. Four of the Rifles were wounded, none
very dangerously. Soon after the Comanches sued for
peace, and their request was favorably considered by the
commander of the department.

Perhaps no regiment in the service was in its day more
distinguished than the Rifles. In Mexico, during nine
months, we engaged the enemy eighteen times, losing in
killed and wounded, sixteen commissioned officers and
several hundred men. Commencing with the Rogue River
affair, in Oregon, detachments of this regiment had fifty-six
successful encounters with the Indians of that State,
of Texas, and of New Mexico, losing in these eight
commissioned officers and many
men killed and wounded. So that from the day of our
landing at Vera Cruz to the beginning of the late war, a
period of fourteen years, this regiment, or portions of it,
had encountered the enemies of our country more than
seventy times, and had lost in killed and wounded twenty-four
commissioned officers and a proportionate number of
its rank and file.

CHAPTER X

A Story of Indian Barbarity - “Red Jackson's” Fight with a Grizzly - Wolf-hunting
with Greyhounds - Exploits of Possum and Toots - Capturing a Grizzly's Cubs -
Transferred to Santa Fé - Anxiety over the Tension between the North and the South - How the News of the Fall of Sumter was received

AFTER Sergeant Bowman's death, we
continued our march without any incident of
note, although, as I have said, we were in
hourly danger of attack or molestation from our
redskin neighbors. When within two days' march of Fort
Union, we reached the Point of Rocks, where a sad
tragedy had been enacted not many months before. We
watched the ominous spot with anxious eyes, as its
outlines became clearer before us, and felt relieved when
we had left it and its sorrowful associations far behind;
for even the children of our party were familiar with the
sad details of the savage barbarities which had been
enacted there.

Some time before we reached it, a gentleman from
Virginia, named White, was making his way to Santa Fe,
where he had business matters awaiting him, carrying
with him his young wife and little child. They had left Fort
Leavenworth in company with a trader's train, with which
they journeyed for protection until within two days of
Fort Union. Their travelling companions were rough and
undesirable associates, and the sojourn together had
been so disagreeable from these causes that they decided
to shorten it as far as possible, and just before reaching the
Point of Rocks said good by to the rest of the party, and
pushed on towards the fort. The place, as the name implies, is a
rocky point which juts out from the neighboring mountain
range, and served to conceal the Indians sheltered behind it, who
awaited there the coming of their victims. From the time a train
left the settlements it was constantly under the espionage of its
watchful enemies, and no detail which might afford them an
opportunity for murder or robbery escaped their vigilant
observation.

The Indians sprang upon the Whites' little party and killed
him and the driver of the carriage, carrying Mrs. White and the
baby off with them. The dead and mutilated bodies of the two
men were found beside the empty vehicle by their late travelling
companions, who sent couriers on to the Post to give the alarm.
A party of the dragoons, commanded by Captain Greer, and
guided by the famous Kit Carson, immediately went in pursuit
of the marauders, who had fled to the mountains. It was two
days before Greer could come up with them, for they had the
advantage of thirty-six hours' start. On the evening of the
second day, just at dusk, as the command was winding along a
rocky defile, Kit Carson suddenly halted them, saying he heard
a child crying. They stopped and listened, but no repetition of
the sound met their ears, and they pushed on. Again he called a
halt and listened, and again nothing could be heard.

Every moment was of value, and, deciding at last that it was
the cry of a wildcat which had deceived them, they continued
their rapid march, and finally surprised the Indians in their
camp. Their fires were lighted, and they felt so secure from
molestation that they had taken no
precaution against it. At the first volley they fled, making no
attempt at a stand against Greer's men. Mrs. White had been
bound to a tree, whether for torture or greater security will
never be known, but most probably for the latter reason. Just
before Greer, who led the attack, reached her side, an Indian,
flying before him, turned and, with cold-blooded barbarity,
transfixed her with an arrow. With such means as he could
command, Captain Greer prepared a grave and laid her body in
it, and then the command set out for its homeward march. There
was no trace of the little child to be found in the camp, and they
were forced to the conclusion that the Indians had carried it off
in their retreat, although this was unlike their usual method of
procedure.

They had left the scenes of their late encounter several hours'
march behind them, and had arrived at the wild mountain pass
where they had tarried the night before to listen for the cry
which had reached them, when suddenly Kit Carson reined in
his horse and pointed down the rocky side of the defile along
which the road wound. There among the boulders lay the dead
body of the child. The savages, finding it troublesome, and
doubtless annoyed by its cries from hunger and fatigue, had
snatched it from the arms of the agonized mother and thrown it
down the precipice beside them, leaving it there to perish from
cold and starvation or to fall a victim to some prowling beast.

There were many such heartbreaking scenes enacted in those
days upon our frontiers, and no Indians were oftener the
participants in them than the Apaches and Comanches, with
whom we had to deal. After a man has been brought face to face
with them in many years of frontier service, he is inclined to
agree unreservedly with General Sheridan's verdict regarding
a “good Indian.”

We reached Fort Union in good time and with all of our
horses in fine condition. It was then the regimental
headquarters, but only one troop of Mounted Rifles
remained there, the others having been sent out upon an
expedition against the Indians, who had been making
threatening demonstrations. It was during this campaign
that an incident occurred, which evidenced the coolness
and courage of one of our young officers, whose name is
recognized to-day wherever lovers of fine horses are
found. I allude to General William H. Jackson, of
Bellemead, or, as his old army friends still call him, “Red
Jackson.” At the time of which I write, he was a lieutenant
in the Rifles, and was out after the Comanches, with his
company. Of course, on a scout of this sort, all hunting
and shooting was strictly forbidden. One day a grizzly
came down from the mountains and crossed the route of
the column. Jackson coolly rode out to encounter the
animal, armed only with his sabre. His horse was blind in
one eye, and, by keeping that side turned to the bear,
Jackson was able to get close to him. At his approach, the
grizzly, nothing loath, rose on his hind legs ready for a
fight, and Jackson cleft his skull with his sword. It is
doubtful if such an exploit was ever elsewhere attempted
or accomplished.

We found Major Simonson, Captain Morris, Dr. Baily,
Lieutenant Julian May, and several other officers on duty
at Fort Union when we reached there. I was Regimental
Adjutant, and we had the regimental band, but very little
to occupy us beside the usual routine of a frontier cavalry
post, which allowed us plenty of leisure for hunting and
wolf-chasing.

Captain Shoemaker was the officer in charge of the
ordnance stores. He was a kindly gentleman, well known
and respected in the army, and kept a fine
pack of greyhounds. His dog Possum was a cross of a
breed left with our regiment, by Sir George Gore, some
years before. He was the tallest and longest dog I have
ever seen, and of great fleetness and power. He always led
the pack of ten greyhounds, which I was enabled to make
up and keep in the Commissary's corral, under charge of
Corporal Thomson, a bright young Virginian and an ardent
hunter. Three times a week in the season we would have
the pack out to kill a wolf. As the prairie sloped gently up
to the edge of the Turkey Mountains, some five miles
distant, we had a good course in full view of the garrison,
and almost always caught the wolf before he could reach
the timber. Otherwise we didn't get him, for the hounds
would not run in cover, and the coyotes seemed to know
this, and always made for it from the start. Possum,
invariably in the lead, would thrust his long snout
between the wolf's hind legs as he closed on him, and toss
him over his back, where he would hold him until the rest
of the pack came up, when he was soon killed. Sometimes
the riders would be up in time to beat the dogs off and tie
up the wolf, taking him home for another day's run.
Occasionally we would get an antelope, and Possum
always threw him in the same way. No animal is so fleet as
the antelope, with a good start and a fair field before him.
Like the hare, however, he is timid, and, when headed off
or turned, becomes bewildered, loses his running, and is
easily caught.

Thus it was that Toots one evening started an
antelope, and was running him along the little valley of
the creek that watered Fort Union, when I galloped to
head him where he would come out upon the prairie, over
which the ten greyhounds were spread out “breasting.”
These, seeing me running, all took up the run in the same
direction,
and as the antelope came out upon the plain he saw a circle
of enemies closing around him, and hesitated, bewildered. Toots
was close behind him, and, seizing him by the leg, swung on to
him until I rolled off Black Jack, caught him by the horn, and
killed him before any dog of the pack had reached him. Toots
was a wonderful dog, occasionally too zealous, as when one day
he killed a polecat in our kitchen, and we had to vacate the
premises for a week, taking refuge with our good friends, Dr.
Baily and his wife.

Not long after, Corporal Thomson and I took the dogs out
after a wolf. We ran one four miles, but he finally got into the
brush of Turkey Mountains and escaped us. We were returning
slowly, the hounds trotting behind the corporal's horse, and
Toots, as usual, ranging out on the prairie, when all at once I
saw him come running in towards us, his ears thrown back in
alarm, and behind him came wabbling in pursuit a polecat, with
tail erect, ready for action. Toots had learned something about
polecats in that momentous encounter in our kitchen, but the
greyhounds had yet to be initiated into the mysteries of that
animal, so when they lifted up their eyes and saw this one
coming, they gathered about him and with one consent rent him
asunder. Then began high jinks; such tumbling and whining and
rubbing of noses and general gymnastics no ten dogs ever set up
at the same time. The corporal and I nearly rolled off our horses
with laughter, and Toots sat off beyond polecat range, laughing
as if he would split his sides. Evidently, he enjoyed the joke
more than any of us.

Toots was the only setter that ever lived to take hold of a
buffalo. One morning, after Sergeant Bowman's death, I was
riding at the head of the column, eagerly watching Lieutenant
Tracy, who was running a cow with
a six-months-old calf. The cow suddenly charged Tracy,
whose horse stampeded and ran away with him for a mile or
more before he could check or turn him. The calf also stampeded
and ran straight for me until it was within about fifteen yards,
when I turned upon it and rolled it over. Toots sprang from the
carriage where he was having a ride beside the driver, dashed
past me, and swung to the calf while it was yet struggling upon
the ground. Long afterward, near Fort Wise, I shot an antelope
and broke his hind leg. Toots chased him with me for fully two
miles, and caught and held him until I seized his horn and knifed
him. Game was so plentiful then on the western frontier that
there were few days in which we could not have good sport.
My own experience in the field convinced me that there was no
animal so wary, so enduring, and so dangerous as the wild bull
of Texas. I except the grizzly bear always, who has not his
equal for fierce and aggressive courage in all the catalogue of wild
beasts.

One day at Fort Staunton a horse guard came galloping in and
reported to Captain Claiborne of the Rifles, that an old she-grizzly
and two cubs were in the timber near the horse pasture.
Claiborne, who was a great hunter and a fine shot, snatched his
rifle, and, accompanied by a friend, hurried out to meet his
savage game. They soon found them and rolled the she-bear
over, but the cubs, about the size of setter dogs, climbed up into
some trees and went out upon the limbs, where no one could get
at them. Claiborne's object being not to kill but to capture them,
it was decided to shoot the limbs, cutting them away with rifle-
balls until they would no longer bear the weight of the cubs.
Being capital shots, this was soon accomplished, and they had
the satisfaction of securing alive fine specimens by this novel
plan for capturing grizzlies.

We passed one year at Fort Union, at the end of which we
heard the news of John Brown's capture of Harper's Ferry.
Then the Indians cut off mail communication, and we heard no
more for many weeks, when by a system of escorts between the
Rifles and the First Cavalry our mail-route was re-established,
and a sergeant brought me a letter from Lieutenant Jeb Stuart,
congratulating me upon my promotion to a captaincy in the
Adjutant-General's department, with orders to repair to Santa
Fé, then the headquarters of the department of New Mexico.
This was a great gratification, as it was a position of high trust
and importance, and carried with it assurance of a comfortable
and permanent residence.

There were many officers stationed at Santa Fé, and the city,
being the headquarters of the department, was much visited by
officers from every part of it, and we all got on very cordially
together until the quickening excitement of the approaching war
separated us. Before the year was out we had to be upon our
guard in our intercourse with each other; for, whereas we
seemed to be in accord before the hostilities began, and nearly
all were Southern in their sympathies, when the time came to
prove the faith, there were but few who gave up the certain pay
and emoluments of the established government of the United
States for the uncertainty of one yet to be created. I remember
that at our last Christmas dinner in Santa Fé, we carefully
selected our guests according to their avowed intentions in the
coming crisis.

At last the blow fell for which we had so apprehensively
been watching. In these days of telegraph and rapid transit, it is
hard to realize the suspense and anxiety from which we suffered
as the days dragged their slow lengths along from the arrival of
one mail to the next. We could only expect news once a week,
and not
then if the Indians chose to interfere with its transmission,
which they frequently did. As the mail-day would approach,
our impatience would increase with each hour of suspense, and I
well recall the anxious group which gathered in our parlor one
evening in May, 1861, to await its arrival and distribution. There
was Loring, our colonel, who had fought through two wars, and
was again to win distinction in another, and Lieutenant John
Pegram, who in the coming struggle would rise to the rank of
general, and die bravely for his home and people, and Grayson
of Virginia, and several others, who with my wife and me
awaited with ill-concealed anxiety the coming of the orderly
with the mail-bag. The mail for all the department came to my
office, and had to be assorted there, but at last we were able to
seize the papers and turn to the telegrams. Usually it was our
home letters, with news of our dear ones far away, which were
opened first, but that night these were cast aside unnoticed,
while we read of the fall of Fort Sumter. Even then it was some
time before we could grasp the details. One after another we
took the sheet and tried to read aloud its contents, and each
voice, broken with emotion in the effort, refused to do its
owner's bidding.

The die was cast. The great war which was to bring to us and
to our people ruin and desolation was upon us, and we must go
to meet it. It was in no light or unappreciative mood that we sat
looking at each other in the silence which followed the reading
of the telegrams; for we realized the greatness of the sacrifice
expected of us, and it was with sad hearts that we turned our
backs upon the friends and associations of a happy past, and
faced the issues of a future which had little to offer us save the
consciousness of duty loyally performed. At last I awoke once
more to the excitement of the moment, and to a
realization of the great crisis of which we alone were informed,
and, seizing the papers, I ran out into the street and made my
way to the officers' quarters, shouting aloud as I went that Fort
Sumter had fallen, and war had begun!

CHAPTER XI

An Expedition against the Navajoes - The Modoc Chief, Captain Jack - The
Journey Home from New Mexico, at the Outbreak of the Civil War - The Feeling
among Army Men - “Stricken from the Rolls” - Experiences in Leavenworth,
Topeka, and on the March - General George H. Thomas

AS soon as the news of Virginia's secession from the Union
reached me, I sent in my resignation, and prepared to follow it
to the States. No one had ever doubted that such would be my
course, and all my friends regarded it as the only proper one for
me to pursue.

The Navajoes had become hostile, committing many
depredations that fall, and we had fitted out a formidable
expedition to invade their country during the winter. It was
placed under the command of Colonel Canby, who pressed it
with severity. While the troops suffered much from the great
cold and deep snows, the Indians perished in numbers. They are
less savage and more thrifty than any other wild tribe, having
permanent homes, flocks and herds, and some manufactures,
and are therefore more assailable. They paid a heavy reckoning
that winter, for their homes were destroyed and their herds
taken from them, and it was said that they dared not stay long
in any one place, and that all the children born to them during
that campaign perished. They soon and earnestly sued for
peace, and
kept it too, until recently hostilities have been renewed in
their region.

Canby did his work effectually, and returned to Santa
Fé just as I was about to leave it for Richmond. He, with
his wife, was our guest there, and I carefully explained to
him how and where I had distributed the troops of the
department, of which he showed his approval, and I then
transferred to him my office and my house. Just four years
afterward, I left him my office in Mobile, he and I having
closed the great war after the long-contested battle of
Mobile, with mutual respect for each other.

During the fighting with the Oregon Indians, in which
Jamie Stuart was killed, Walker's command captured a
young Indian little more than a lad. The Rifles had
scattered a band which took to the river, and as our men
were examining the banks in search of fugitives, one of
them saw a pair of bright eyes shining through the roots
of an overhanging tree, and stooping, caught an Indian
boy by his legs, and hauled him out. They took him along
for some time, until near where he could make his way to
his people, and then set him free. It would have been
better for all if the young reptile had been shot then and
there. Years afterward, Canby was murdered by the
celebrated Modoc chief, Captain Jack. He was the Indian
boy caught by Walker thirty years before, and set free,
and in relating the history of his life just before his
execution, Jack recited the incidents of his capture and of
his liberation. The Post chaplain who ministered to him in
his last moments felt it his duty to prepare him for his fate,
and to reconcile him to it by descanting to him upon the
good company who would greet him in the eternal home,
to which Jack replied: “I don't know none them peoples.
They your
friends. I give you ten ponies you tak' my place tomorrer!”

I sold out my household goods of every sort in Santa
Fé, and hired a wagon of the first train to cross the plains,
and the quartermaster furnished me with an ambulance
and team. At Fort Union, where we halted to make up our
party, every consideration and respect was shown us.
Lieutenant Enos, a big-hearted young fellow from New
York, had been much with me and my family, and showed
deep emotion on parting from us. Lieutenant Gay, another
manly young officer, took me to one side and said: “You
may need a good horse before you get through. I present
you with that Navajo mare of mine. I picked her out of a
drove of five hundred we captured. She is yours.” Webb,
the sutler, pressed upon me as much money as I would
accept. I assured him I was well supplied, but told him of
another of our Southern officers who needed money, and
he gave him as much as he could be induced to take.

At every Post upon our route the same kindly feeling
met us, and at parting we were told: “I hate to lose you,
old fellow, but you are perfectly right. If I were in your
place, I would do the same thing.”

The season was late, and the grass for half of our
journey very bad, and we were forty-five days in our
wagons, a wearisome time of suspense and anxiety to us.
Our escort consisted of about seventy men, who had just
served the term of their enlistment, and were on furlough.
With two exceptions, they all intended on reaching the
States to join Northern regiments for the approaching
war.

As we proceeded, rumors of the coming struggle flew
thick and fast toward us, and each day the danger of
arrest and detention seemed more imminent, and our
anxiety for the helpless women and children of our party
increased. When within two or three miles of Council
Grove, we met three rough-looking men in an open
wagon, who called out to us as they passed: “You had
better look out in Council Grove! They are going to give
you hell!”

Captain John G. Walker was in command of the party,
and he and I took counsel, finally deciding that he should
close his command well up on the rising ground above
the village, while I would ride on into it and report if there
were any hostile demonstration or purpose to hurt or
hinder us. We knew that Jim Lane and the Kansas roughs
had been notified of our coming and of our position
towards the government of the United States, and that we
were now entering the most advanced outposts of the
“Jay Hawkers.” I rode up to our carriage, and asked my
wife to let me have the children's old shoes, telling her I
would ride on ahead and buy some new ones, as we
should not halt in the place. As she gave them to me, she
also let me understand that she knew my real object. I
rode forward, and stopping at the largest store, where
some horses were hitched, went in and got the shoes. A
group of men standing there greeted me sociably, and
were inclined to be chatty, and I rode back and told
Walker to come on, as there was no danger. We marched
rapidly through the town to our camp, four miles beyond,
and felt relief at having escaped any trouble. One of our
objects in going beyond the village was to prevent the
men from obtaining liquor if we could, for it was the
Fourth of July, and after their long enforced sobriety
upon the march they would be the more apt to indulge
themselves too freely now.

Our camp had been pitched, and I was stretched out
on my cot resting after the hard, hot ride, when I was
aroused by a disturbance near the guard tent. As I looked
out an old Rifleman, named Kearns, knocked the sergeant
of the guard down. I have never seen a man knocked as
he was. He went tumbling fifteen feet before he rested on
his back. Kearns stood, pistol in hand, defying arrest. He
was six feet two inches in height, and was known as the
bully of the regiment. When he was sober, he was an
excellent soldier, but now he was maddened by whiskey.
He laid his loaded rifle at his feet, and swore he would kill
any one who attempted to arrest him, and, holding his
revolver in his hand with his thumb on the hammer, he
was ready to make good his word.

Walker, at about forty paces' distance from Kearns,
was attempting to cap his Colt's rifle and shoot him down
where he stood; for he thought it was the signal for a
general uprising; that it meant violence to us and to our
wives and children. I snatched up my sixshooter, and ran
to Walker, urging him not to shoot Kearns, adding that I
would disarm him. Mrs. Walker at the same time clung to
her husband, imploring him not to shoot, while I, holding
my cocked pistol behind me, advanced rapidly towards
my man, striving to keep the while between Walker and
him. As I approached him, I held out my left hand for his
revolver, and said a few earnest words to him about the
helpless women and children he was endangering, ending
by ordering him to go at once to the guard tent. He
handed me his pistol, saying, “Captain Maury, I've
always uphilt ye fer a gintleman, if ye are a Southern man,
and I'll do just as ye bid me,” and turning he went to the
guard tent and lay down.

Next morning when I came out of my tent I saw
Kearns sitting in front of the guard tent, looking the
picture of woe. I beckoned him to me, and gave him his
arms, and begged him not to drink again upon this march.
With very deep feeling he said, “Surr, I'll never forgit your
treatment of me as long as I live, and ef iver ye need a
friend, ye'll find him in me.” He showed sincere emotion,
and he kept his word, for he never drank again, and he
seemed always on the lookout for an opportunity to help
me or to serve me in any possible way. Nor did the
insubordinate characters who had encouraged Kearns to
his riotous outbreak ever transgress further, though they
would have gone to any length had he not yielded.

Two of them were on my tent detail, and the morning I
rode away from camp into Leavenworth they stole my
revolvers. I was greatly concerned when I heard it, and,
after I had reported to the commanding officer, set out for
the encampment of our escort with a vague hope of
recovering them. I saw a man approaching me, whom I
recognized as the rascal I suspected. When he saw me he
changed his course, and, as I still approached him, broke
into a run. I did likewise, and as he stepped into a little
ditch and fell, I sprang on top of him, demanding my
pistol, which he relinquished. By that time the sergeant of
the guard had come hastily up, and, taking out my
memorandum book, I called the number of the pistol. The
sergeant said, “It is yours, Captain,” and handed it to me. I
then ordered him to take the man to the guard tent and
hand him over to the officer with my compliments, which
was done forthwith. One of the officers had already
recovered the other pistol for me, and I thus received
another of the many evidences proffered us of the good
feeling of our brother-officers towards us, who were so
soon to be widely separated from them.

At Topeka, Kansas, the morning papers contained the
order announcing that “Captain Carter L. Stevenson,
Captain Dabney H. Maury, and Lieutenant Edward Dillon
are hereby stricken from the rolls of the army for
entertaining treasonable designs against the government
of the United States.” From that time we naturally doubted
if we would be permitted to proceed on our journey
southward.

On our homeward march, we crossed the Arkansas at
Bent's old ford, and followed the river down its course for
many days. Walker had brought with him a huge and
savage dog, half mastiff, half bloodhound, of whom
everybody was afraid. He was more tolerant of me than of
any one, because I used to take him with me on my hunts.
But on this particular evening old Cy was very cross, and
as in passing I patted him on the head he tossed up his
mouth and seized me by the arm with a savage growl. I
knew it was war to the death, and I kicked him heavily in
the ribs, drawing my knife as I did so. The brute crouched
and sprang at my throat, and I caught him fair in the breast
with my knife. He drew back, casting a reproachful look at
me, and, staggering to the river, rolled over dead. I called
out to Walker that I had killed his dog, expressing my
regret at having been forced to do so; to which he replied
that he was glad I had done it, and that I had no other
course, as he certainly would have killed me if I hadn't him.

Our camp was near Fort Atkinson, about which we
found some two thousand Indians assembled. They were
Arapahoes and Cheyennes, who were awaiting the
annual distribution by the Indian agents of presents, etc.
About ten minutes after old Cy's death, I observed a
number of Indians gathered about his body, and finally
an old squaw emerged from the crowd, exultingly holding
aloft one of old Cy's hind quarters, as she went to her
tepee shouting in wild Indian fashion. As the group
dispersed I went down to the river. They had left nothing
of the dog save a little blood upon the grass. They had
had no fresh meat for some time, and dog is an Indian's
dainty dish.

On our last night out we camped within eight miles of
Fort Leavenworth, and very early next morning I rode into
the Post, expecting possible arrest, and intending to pass
on to Louisville and await my family there, if I found there
was any intention to stop me. I rode to the cutler's store
just as the morning flag was running up, and found there
old Colonel Rich, one of the most respected and beloved
of the old-time cutlers. His son was already in the First
Missouri Regiment and in the field on the Southern side.
Poor lad! He fell gallantly fighting at Shiloh.

I was clad in an old corduroy hunting-suit, and had not
been shaven or shorn since I left Santa Fe, and the old
gentleman peered curiously into my face as we walked out
of hearing before he said, “Why, it's Maury, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I'd never have taken you for a gentleman. What
are you doing here so early?”

“I am here to learn if they intend to arrest me.”

“No, indeed; they will treat you more kindly than ever
you were treated in Fort Leavenworth.” And so, indeed,
they did.

I hastened back to meet the column and come in with
the other officers and report to the commander of the
Post, Colonel Prince. After cordially welcoming us, he
said, “Maury, here's an order interesting to you and
Stevenson,” and gave us the order we had seen a few
days before at Topeka. I then turned to the paymaster
and asked if a month's pay was not due me. He said,
“Yes; and I would like to pay it to you, but here is an
order just received requiring that it shall be paid to you
only in Washington.” It has been paid me since.

Our stay in Leavenworth was brief, and when we came
away a young kinsman of mine from Virginia, who was
employed in the paymaster's department, joined us. His
name was Francis Berkeley. He entered a Virginia
regiment, shouldered his musket, and played his part like
a man, and now lives, highly respected, as Captain
Berkeley of Staunton. One of our Virginia regiments was
known as “the Berkeley regiment,” because the colonel,
the lieutenant-colonel, the major, and the adjutant were all
Berkeleys, akin to each other.

The record of the Virginians everywhere, when their
State seceded, is full of pride and honor. Many were in
distant parts of the army, or on remote stations in the
Navy, or otherwise enjoying positions of credit and
emolument. Yet, with a promptness and devotion never
surpassed, they surrendered every benefit which long
and distinguished service had earned for them, and made
their way home through dangers and difficulties, from a
noble sense of duty to their State and to their people.

Of those who finally decided to bear arms against the
South, George H. Thomas easily leads in point of ability
and attainments as a soldier. He was born in
Southampton County, Virginia, was greatly distinguished
in the Mexican War, and was voted a sword by his native
State. No man was ever more devoted to his own people,
and they greatly loved and honored him. In
the Virginia Convention, which was greatly opposed to
secession until Lincoln declared his purpose to march an
army across the State to coerce South Carolina, Thomas
was thought of as the commander-in-chief of the Virginia
forces. Neither Lee nor Johnston had yet declared his
purpose in case his State should secede, while Thomas
had proclaimed that he would retire from the Federal army
and enter the service of Virginia in the event of her
secession.

He had active friends to support his claims, and he
applied early for an appointment in the Virginia forces,
and Governor Letcher held an important office awaiting
his resignation from the United States army. With this in
his pocket, as it were, he went to New York to sever his
connection with the service of the United States, and
bring his wife back to Virginia with him. She was a woman
of fine character. Her kindred and her property were in
New York, and through her influence he delayed his
action until he had received from General Scott orders to
an important post; and like other great soldiers of history
and good men everywhere and in all times past, he was
conquered by a woman.

When General Fitz Lee, en route to Virginia, after his
own resignation, called to see Thomas, he said at parting,
“Well, Major, I suppose we shall meet in Richmond in a
few days?”

Thomas' purposes were as well understood as those of
any other man whatever in his position. He made them a
matter of record by his official applications for service,
which were published and well known before his death.
Had he followed his natural inclinations and allegiance,
and accepted the commission which Governor
Letcher held in reserve for him, his native State
would have been the better off by one more able and
brave commander.

We reached St. Louis with great anxiety, for party-feeling
ran high there, General Lyon being especially
vigorous in his course against the secession party. Camp
Jackson had been captured and some citizens had been
shot. We regretted the fact that we were compelled to
remain all night in the city, and could not cross over into
Illinois until next morning. Some of our late escort had
travelled along with us thus far, and among them a
corporal who said he intended to have me arrested. He
was an Englishman, and was one of those who had
instigated Kearns to his violent outbreak. I had decided to
avoid the fashionable hotels in St. Louis, where I might be
met and recognized, and went to a quiet house, where
such was not so apt to be the case. While registering my
name, a man came up beside me to register his, and
turning I found myself face to face with the corporal. I
gave him a nod of recognition, which he received with an
insolent and triumphant air, as I fancied, at having me at
last in his power. It was already midnight, and no arrests
could be made then, and we were to cross the river before
sunrise in the morning, so I said to myself, “If that fellow
does not go over into Illinois with us, we are safe.” As we
stepped on the ferry-boat, one of the very first men we
saw was this rascal. I had not been so alarmed since
leaving Fort Union. Two trains were waiting the arrival of
the ferry-boat, one bound for Chicago, and the other for
Louisville, and to our great satisfaction the man took the
former, and we saw him no more.

The conductor of our train was a remarkably
gentlemanly man, and said, pointing to our servants who
had
gone with us to New Mexico: “I presume these are your
slaves, and I wish to tell you not to be anxious about
them. I have carried more than four thousand slaves over
this line, and have never lost one.” I was not uneasy on
that score, for ours were more afraid of losing us than we
were of losing them; but it was with a feeling of general
relief that I gathered my little party safely around me in
the Galt House in Louisville, and took a julep.

CHAPTER XII

Arrival in Richmond - On the Battle-field of Manassas - Embarrassing
Interview with General Joseph E. Johnston - His Protest against being
superseded by General Lee - His Removal from the Command of the Army of
Tennessee - Anecdotes of Johnston - His Personal Traits and Family Life -
His Opinions of Napoleon, Marlborough, Forrest, and Others

WE reached Richmond on July 19th, where all was in active
preparation for war. I reported to the governor and to
General Lee, commanding the forces of Virginia. I was
much impressed by the grave and anxious aspect of
General Lee, and remarked to Commodore Maury that it
surprised and depressed me. He, too, had observed it. I
was appointed Colonel of Cavalry of the Virginia forces,
and ordered to report to Adjutant-General Cooper. The
same day I received my appointment as Captain of the
Regular Cavalry of the Confederacy, and Lieutenant-Colonel
of their provisional army.

I told General Cooper that I would take my family to Fredericksburg, where my
mother, whom I had not seen for two years, was living,
and he replied that he would send my orders there.

The Sunday that I spent in Fredericksburg, we could
hear all day the distant firing at Manassas. No orders had
yet come for me, but I took the first train for Richmond. I
had been apprehensive lest my wife or mother should
hinder me from going into battle, but I never
again had any anxiety on that score, for they seemed as
solicitous as I that I should be in time for that engagement. On
arriving at the adjutant-general's office, I found that my orders
had been sent to the Spottswood Hotel, where I had never been
at all. But for this mistake, I should have reached Manassas in
time for the great battle, for I was assigned to General Joseph E.
Johnston, as his adjutant-general.

On my way up, I met people at every station who were full
of the news of the great victory. President Davis was on the
down train, and had been in the battle, and from the platform of
the car made a stirring speech to the exultant multitude. When I
reached the field, the Federal dead were not yet all buried, and I
remember well the horrid spectacle of near one hundred
red-breeched Zouaves who lay about where the Confederates
had captured a Federal battery, their swollen bodies and
blackened faces making a ghastly contrast with their bright
scarlet uniforms and gay trappings.

On my arrival, I immediately presented my orders to General
Johnston. As he read them, he exclaimed with great emphasis:
“This is an outrage! I rank General Lee, and he has no right to
order officers into my army.” Of course I was deeply mortified,
and after an interval sufficient to allow him to grow calmer, I
asked him to let me speak to him. He cordially assented, and,
walking off from ear-shot of those about him, and placing his
arm affectionately on my shoulder, said, “Maury, you know, or
you ought to know, that I would rather have you in this office
with me than any other man in the army, but I cannot accept
any orders which will acquiesce in so unlawful an assignment of
rank of the Confederate generals as has been made.” As he
spoke, he passed his arm over my shoulder, and showed great
feeling for me.

I said: “I know nothing of this, and my position is a very
embarrassing one. With your permission, I will go at once to
Richmond and request assignment elsewhere.” Which I did
forthwith.

General Johnston recovered from his wounds at Jalapa in
time to enter the valley of Mexico with General Scott, and bear
his part in those battles. At Chapultepec, while leading his
battalion, he was severely wounded again, making the ninth shot
received by him in battle. On the disbandment of the voltigeurs,
he was restored to the Topographical Engineers, where he
served until 1854. When two new regiments of cavalry were
added to our regular army, he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel
of the First, and Lee Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second.
In the course of four or five years, Johnston was made
Quartermaster-General, with rank and pay of Brigadier-General,
and the Senior Major promoted to his vacated Lieutenant-Colonelcy.
The Confederate Congress made a law that all
officers should hold rank in the Confederate army in accordance
with that held in the United States army, and Johnston, as the
only brigadier-general who came south, felt that he was entitled
to be the senior general of the Confederate forces. But it was
ordered that he should take position as if he had been a
lieutenant-colonel. This placed him below Sidney Johnston,
General Cooper, and General Lee, making him fourth in rank
instead of first, and was naturally very galling to him, conscious
as he was of his great powers and remarkable services.

I subsequently learned that after our interview at Manassas,
General Johnston wrote to President Davis, protesting against
the injustice of the existing state of affairs, and saying that he
would raise no protest now,
nor until the independence of the Southern Confederacy should
be achieved, when he would use all lawful means to have his
rank rightfully established. The gauntlet then thrown down was
accepted as a gauge of battle between the President and General
Johnston, ultimately causing his removal from the command of
the army of Tennessee and the downfall of the Confederacy, as
many now believe. Johnston was critical, controversial, and
sometimes irritable by nature, very exact in his statements, and
possessed of a wonderful memory. Few men read so much as
he, and none I have ever seen retained so accurately facts and
impressions, or were so careful in the selection of the words to
express their views. It is not probable that any man in our
country had ever studied the histories and biographies of wars
and warriors as had Johnston.

I find among my papers the following letter from General
Johnston, which is interesting as giving his account of the
campaign preceding his removal from the command of the
army of Tennessee: -

MACON, GA., September 1st, 1864.My Dear Maury:

I have been intending ever since my arrival at this place to pay a part
of the epistolary debt I owe you. But you know how lazy it makes one
to have nothing to do, and so with the hot weather we have been enduring
here, I have absolutely devoted myself to idleness. I have been disposed to
write more particularly of what concerns myself - to explain to you, as far
as practicable, the operations for which I was laid on the shelf, for you are one
of the last whose unfavorable opinion I would be willing to incur.

You know that the army I commanded was that which, under General Bragg, was routed at
Missionary Ridge. Sherman's army was that which routed it, reinforced by the Sixteenth and
Twenty-third Corps. I am censured for not taking the offense at Dalton - where the enemy,
if beaten, had a secure refuge behind the fortified gap at Ringgold, or in the fortress of
Chattanooga, and where the
odds against us were almost ten to four. At Resaca he received five brigades,
near Kingston three, and about 3500 cavalry; at New Hope Church one; in all
about 14,000 infantry and artillery. The enemy received the Seventeenth Corps
and a number of garrisons and bridge guards from Tennessee and Kentucky that
had been relieved by “hundred-day men.”

I am blamed for not fighting. Operations commenced about the 6th of May; I was
relieved on the 18th of July. In that time we fought daily, always under circumstances
so favorable to us as to make it certain that the sum of the enemy's losses was five times
ours, which was 10,000 men. Northern papers represented theirs up to about the end of June
at 45,000. Sherman's progress was at the rate of a mile and a quarter a day. Had this style
of fighting been allowed to continue, is it not clear that we would soon have been able to give
battle with abundant chances of victory, and that the enemy, beaten on this side of the
Chattahoochee, would have been destroyed? It is certain that Sherman's army was stronger,
compared with that of Tennessee, than Grant's, compared with that of Northern Virginia.
General Bragg asserts that Sherman's was absolutely stronger than Grant's. It is well known
that the army of Virginia was much superior to that of Tennessee.

Why, then, should I be condemned for the defensive while General Lee was adding
to his great fame by the same course? General Bragg seems to have earned at Missionary
Ridge his present high position. People report at Columbus and Montgomery that General
Bragg said that my losses had been frightful; that I had disregarded the wishes and
instructions of the President; that he had in vain implored me to change my course, by which
I suppose is meant assume the offensive.

As these things are utterly untrue, it is not to be supposed that they were said by General
Bragg. The President gave me no instructions and expressed no wishes except just before
we reached the Chattahoochee, warning me not to fight with the river behind us and against
crossing it, and previously he urged me not to allow Sherman to detach to Grant's aid. General
Bragg passed some ten hours with me just before I was relieved, and gave me the impression
that his visit to the army was casual, he being on his way further west to endeavor to get us
reinforcements from Kirby Smith and Lee. I thought him satisfied with the state of things,
but not so with that in Virginia. He assured me that he had always maintained
in Richmond that Sherman's army was stronger than Grant's. He said nothing of the
intention to relieve me, but talked with General Hood on the subject, as I learned after
my removal. It is clear that his expedition had no other object than my
removal and the giving proper direction to public opinion on the subject. He could have
had no other object in going to Montgomery. A man of honor in his place would have
communicated with me as well as with Hood on the subject. Being
expected to assume the offensive, he attacked on the 20th, 22d,
and 28th of July, disastrously, losing more men than I had done in
seventy-two days. Since then his defensive has been at least as quiet as mine was.

But you must be tired of this. We are living very quietly and
pleasantly here. The Georgians have been very hospitable. We
stopped here merely because it was the first stopping-place.
Remember us cordially to Mrs. Maury. Tell her the gloves arrived
most opportunely. Mine had just been lost and it would have been
impossible to buy more, and they are lovely. Just before I left the
army we thought the odds against us had been reduced almost six
to four. I have not supposed therefore that Sherman could either
invest Atlanta or carry it by assault.

Very truly yours, J. E. JOHNSTON.
Major-General Maury.

When Johnston took charge of the great army of
Tennessee, which had been defeated and disorganized
before his arrival to its command, it was in wretched
condition. Most of the general officers were in open
hostility or avowed mistrust of the general commanding,
and indiscipline prevailed throughout. When Johnston
came, the change was instantaneous and henceforth no
army of the Confederacy ever equalled Johnston's in drill
and high discipline.

General Carter Stevenson was one of the division
commanders of that army, a man of the largest experience
and military accomplishments. He had served in every
army of the Confederacy, and actively in all of our wars
since 1834. He told me he had never seen any troops in
such fine discipline and condition as
Johnston's army the day he was removed from its
command. General Randall L. Gibson had been in constant
action in the Western army. He it was who closed an
honorable record by his masterly command of the
defences near Spanish Fort, on the eastern shore of
Mobile Bay, in the last great battle of the war between the
States. He says that when Johnston assumed command of
that army, it was somewhat demoralized, but when the
campaign with Sherman opened, the worst regiment in it
was equal to its best when he came to its command. A
Missouri soldier of Cockrell's brigade, which Johnston
declared to be the best body of infantry he ever saw, was
on his way back to his regiment after recovery from a
wound. I asked him, “What do you all think of the change
of commanders?”

“Oh, sir, we are mightily cut down about it. The bomb-proofs
and the newspapers complain of his retreats. Why, we didn't miss a meal from Dalton
to Atlanta, and were always ready for the fight. We never felt we were
retreating.”

Just after Johnston's removal, General Wigfall passed
Mobile, and sent a request to me to come down to his
steamer, for he wanted to have some talk with me. He was
just from the army of Tennessee, where he had been with
Hood, Johnston having gone away. He spoke with his
accustomed vigor relative to the change of commanders,
saying: “Mr. Davis' favor was no less fatal to its objects
than his animosities. That young man Hood had a fine
career before him until Davis undertook to make of him
what the good Lord had not done - to make a great
general of him. He has removed General Johnston and put
Hood in his place. He has thus ruined Hood, and
destroyed the last hope of the Southern Confederacy.”

Several years after the war, the Legislature of Virginia
ordered General Johnston's portrait to be painted by Elder
and hung in the capitol of the State. I was asked to be
present at the sittings, to keep him in conversation that the
artist might have the advantage of the play of his features.
The first day he discussed Napoleon, Marlborough, and
Wellington. Ranking Napoleon above all great commanders
since Cæsar, he criticised him with great animation for more
than half an hour. Marlborough he ranked as the greatest
commander and statesman England ever produced. He
inveighed bitterly against the partisanship of Macaulay,
who accepted as authority contemporary disparagement of
Marlborough, while he rejected the same authority as
unworthy of credit when it assailed King William. The next
day he discussed Lee, Jackson, and Forrest, and according
to Lee and Jackson the full measure of their fame, he
pronounced Forrest the greatest soldier the war produced.
These discussions occupied each day the whole time of the
sittings. He spoke uninterruptedly. Elder and I listened, and
always regretted that his words and emphasis could not be
recorded and preserved. The portrait is a good one, and it
hangs in the rotunda with those of Lee, Jackson, Maury,
and many another of Virginia's sons from colonial days till
now.

At Seven Pines, when assured of victory, Johnston was
stricken down by the severest injury he had ever received.
A shell burst near him, breaking three of his ribs, and at
the same time a rifle-ball pierced his shoulder-blade. He fell
from his horse, and was borne from the field to the
residence of his friend, Mr. Grenshaw, where he lay until
somewhat recovered from his eleventh and last wound.
While lying there, he was the object of great interest and
affection to all our people,
who felt we were deprived, at a most critical time, of
our great leader, who up to that time had evinced every
capacity of a general, while Lee had not yet achieved
success in the field. During this period, an old gentleman
of Richmond called to pay his respects and express
sympathy for our general. He said, “General, I not only
deplore this because of the suffering it entails upon you,
but I consider it a great national calamity.” To his great
amazement, Johnston suddenly raised himself upon his
elbow, and with his peculiar energy of expression said:
“No, sir. The shot that struck me down is the very best
that has been fired for the Southern Confederacy yet. For I
possess in no degree the confidence of our government,
and now they have in my place one who does possess it,
and who can accomplish what I never could have
done, - the concentration of our armies for the defence of
the capital of the Confederacy.”

Dr. Fauntleroy, his medical attendant and the chief
surgeon of the army, was present at this interview, which
he related to me many years after, when Johnston was
running for Congress, and when the opposition papers
were daily disparaging him. Fauntleroy told me this while I
was on my way to the White Sulphur, where General and
Mrs. Johnston were established for the summer. I urged
Fauntleroy to publish this characteristic anecdote in the
Richmond Dispatch. He demurred, but I insisted that he
owed it to the general to remind our people of those days
when he endured so much for them, and he finally agreed
to do it, stipulating that he should not sign his name to
the story.

Accordingly, it came out in the next issue of the
Dispatch signed “Medicus.” I went on my way to the
Springs, well pleased with the part I had borne in this
tribute to the old man. A few days afterward Johnston
returned from his canvass, and was very bright and well
satisfied with the progress of his contest. He hunted me up
about dinner-time, and said he had some fresh mint and
good brandy at his cottage, where we would go, and his
wife would make us a julep. On our way across the lawn,
he was so cheery and pleasant that it seemed to me a
favorable time to tell him of Fauntleroy's publication, and if
he seemed greatly pleased I would impart to him my share
in this friendly service. As I proceeded with my narrative, I
observed an ominous silence come over him, with an
increasing redness about his face and a peculiar twitching
of his neck, premonitory of an explosion. Suddenly he
stopped still, and in a fierce tone said, “Don't you think it
an infamous outrage, sir, to publish a gentleman's name in
the newspapers without his permission?” I did not remind
him that his name had been daily for many months
published in the newspapers without his permission, nor
did I think it worth while to allude to the part I had borne in
this “infamous outrage,” but just went right along. In fact,
I rather acquiesced in his views, and changed the subject,
till Mrs. Johnston with her delicious juleps and hearty
cordiality made us forget all the outrages of the world.

I have never known two people more devoted to each
other than they were. Her health was not robust, and he
watched over her in her illnesses with the greatest
tenderness, and at all times paid her the delicate
attentions of a lover. I believe they had been married more
than fifty years when her death occurred. It left him very
desolate. They had no children, which was a great cause
of regret to him, for he was very fond of children and was
especially so of mine. He told me
one day with much feeling, “You are certainly blessed in
your children.”

One day, while living in Richmond, Mrs. Johnston
stopped her carriage and asked me if I could tell he where
her husband was. I went to seek him, and told him “the
handsomest and brightest woman in Richmond was
looking for her husband.” Drawing himself up he said:
“There is but one woman in Richmond who answers to
that description, and she is my wife. Where is she?” Soon
after, he fell and hurt his leg seriously. When I went to see
him, I found him with his crippled leg supported by a
chair, and Mrs. Johnston, sitting by his side, was chaffing
him. I told her she ought not to treat a husband so who
adored her as he did, and related his compliment of a few
days before. She laughed heartily at us both, saying he
would never have said it if he had not known that I would
tell her.

She was very bright and jovial and loved to banter him,
and he enjoyed it all quite as much as she did. One
summer we were at the Sweet Chalybeate with our families.
The Johnstons occupied a two-story cottage, and one
morning we were chatting together on the upper portico
and the general was narrating something with interest,
when a wild shriek of fright came from the walk below. He
looked over the railing, and in a moment had resumed his
narration, when he was again interrupted by a yell. This
happened the third time, when he looked down upon the
frightened shrieker and called out to her fiercely, “Why
don't you run away?”

I remarked, “That is fine advice to come from a great
commander.” He turned upon me. “Well, sir, if she won't
fight, the best thing she can do is to run away, isn't it?”

Mrs. Johnston, with her hearty laugh, put in, “That
used to be your plan, I know, sir.” His fierce face relaxed
into a hearty laugh, in which we all joined. A young
woman in a red cloak and a turkey gobbler were the cause
of the interruptions. The gobbler ran at her; she stood
still and shrieked, which repulsed the turkey. Then he
turned and charged her again, and she, making no effort
to get away, shrieked and shrieked again, till at last
assistance came.

Johnston and I had traversed in Texas the beautiful
Wild Rose Pass of the Guadalupe Mountains, through
which for many miles the Lympia Creek finds its way. In
places, the bare cliffs of basaltic rock rise twelve or fifteen
hundred feet above the little stream. In other parts,
beautiful wooded slopes stretch away for miles, so that
the Lympia Cañon has been for years the beautiful
wonder of the route from San Antonio to El Paso. One
day I asked him how he explained the power of that little
stream to make a way for itself through the great mountain
barrier, expecting some profound geological solution. I
was answered when he said, “I presume the Power that
could make the stream could make a way for the stream to
pass, sir.”

In the last year of his life, he consented to be godfather
to my little granddaughter, and we went to Richmond and
occupied neighboring rooms at the hotel. I have rarely
seen the general brighter or more cheerful. He played with
the little child, ran up and down the halls with her, and
held her in his arms during the entire service, after which
he and the venerable pastor, the beloved Dr. Peterkin,
stood long together by the chancel, in deep and earnest
conversation. As he turned away, the general's eyes were
moist. They both felt they were near the bourne they so
soon passed. The
Count de Paris and his suite were in Richmond at the
time, and were honored with a reception at the home of
Colonel Archer Anderson, who invited us to meet them.
The general and the count soon drew off to one side, and
for more than an hour were absorbed in earnest
discussion of the vexed questions of war.

After our return to Washington, I visited him
frequently, and he told me several times that his visit to
Richmond was the happiest week he had enjoyed for
many years. One day I found him reading an ancient folio,
the writings of Tamerlane, Timour the Tartar. He read to
me many pages, with great interest to us both. On another
day he was reading Thiers' history in the original, and
read aloud with much feeling the narrative of the last days
and death of Napoleon. Soon after, he contracted a
dangerous cold, and gradually sank.

Five or six days before he died, I called to see how he
was. As I entered the room, he beckoned from the lunch-table
for me to come and sit by him. Open on the table
near him lay the memoirs of Du Guesclin. He was quite ill
then, and soon took to his bed, from which he never
arose, and where he calmly and serenely received the last
sacrament of the church. As I bade him farewell, I said
“Good by,” as cheerfully as I could, adding: “I go to
Texas to-morrow. We will soon meet again.”

In the Trans-Mississippi Campaign under Van Dorn - A Virginian's
Hospitality - Incidents of the Retreat from Corinth, after Shiloh -
The Adventures of Jem, the Colored Boy, a Type of the Loyal Servant -
His Encounter with General Price - A Quaint and Humorous Character

ON leaving Manassas, I went to Richmond and procured an assignment
to the army of Fredericksburg, with headquarters at Brooke's Station.
General Holmes was its commander. I was much impressed by the
excellent drill and discipline of the troops and the ability and high
accomplishment of the officers. I had never seen as good drilling in any
infantry troop or artillery of the United States army as I found in these
volunteers. The officers a few months before had been in their
law-offices, or in their counting-houses, and the rank and file in
their various civil vocations, but already they were in excellent
condition for the active service. They were eager to learn and
work. Perhaps the Fortieth Virginia Infantry, Brockenborough's,
was in the most complete state of efficiency. The Georgia
Regiment of Colonel Simms, the North Carolina Regiment of
Colonel Pettigrew, one of the ablest soldiers and most cultivated
gentlemen who fell in our war, and the regiments of Colonel
Stokes, of Colonel Gaston Mears, of Colonel Tew, were all in
fine order. Every one of these able commanders was killed in
battle, and had made a command worthy of him. Two fine
regiments of Texans came along on the route
to Dumfries; the Fourth Texas under Colonel Hood, and the
Fifth under Colonel Archer.

The only survivors of that roll of able and brave colonels are
Colonel Fagin, then of the First Arkansas Regiment, since a
prominent general; Colonel Bates, since governor, and now
senator of Tennessee; and Colonel Ransom, of North Carolina.
Another Texas regiment was afterwards added to the Fourth and
Fifth to make up the famous Texas Brigade under Hood, which
was accounted invincible. The Fourth Texas had over four
hundred native-born Virginians in it. It was this Texas brigade
which caught Lee's bridle when he wished to lead it to the
assault at Spottsylvania, and said, “You go to the rear, and we'll
drive them to hell.”

After the victory of the first Manassas, both armies lay
quiescent for many months. Johnston, commanding the
Confederate forces, was confronted by McClellan, commanding
the great Army of the Potomac. In February, 1862, General Earle
Van Dorn was made commander of the Trans-Mississippi
Department, and I was ordered to proceed at once and report to
him as Chief of Staff of the Department. While a distinguished
honor, this was a sore trial to me; for it took me far away from
my wife and mother and from my native State, Virginia, when
my chief ambition was to fight for her.

I overtook Van Dorn and his staff at Jacksonport, in
Arkansas. With him were several officers of the old army, with
whom it was my destiny to serve through more than one
campaign. The story of the war has been so often told that I shall
give only the prominent events in which I bore my part, and of
which I have personal knowledge, omitting reports and battles of
campaigns heretofore published.

After our defeat at Elkhorn, we remained several weeks
in Van Buren, resting and refitting the army. One night it
was reported that forty men had died in the hospitals,
poisoned by morphine, given to them through mistake for
quinine. A box, marked quinine, had been smuggled in
from St. Louis. All of the bottles were labelled quinine.
One, as the fatal result proved, was morphine, and was
administered in quinine doses. We had no means of
ascertaining whether the mistake was the result of
accident or of a cruel fraud. There was no remedy and no
appeal. The government of the United States had declared
medicines contraband of war. In all the wars of history,
Wellington alone in his Spanish campaigns had
proclaimed this inhuman war measure.

Restless at this enforced inaction, Van Dorn told me
that he would send a dispatch to General Sidney Johnston
that he would join our army of the West to Johnston's
forces at Corinth, destroy Grant's army at Shiloh, and clear
Kentucky and Tennessee of the enemy. General Johnston
desired this to be done, so we put our forces at once upon
the march, while we hastened on in advance to consult
with General Johnston about our plans.

The battle of Shiloh was fought before we reached
there, and Buell rescued Grant before our fresh troops
could complete Johnston's success. We brought about
16,000 men to reinforce Beauregard, holding the works about
Corinth, against which Halleck was very slowly and
timidly advancing with overwhelming forces. Three times
we moved out of our works, and invited Halleck to attack,
but each time he drew back. Finally, our troops suffered
so much from bad water and a bad commissariat, that we
evacuated the lines on the night of May 30th, and retired
by slow marches upon Tupelo, where we had good water,
fresh provisions, and plenty of time for drills, reviews, etc.

On the night of our evacuation of Corinth, I commanded
the rear guard of the army of the West. The splendid
Missouri Brigade, Wade's or Bledsoe's battery, and two
fine regiments - one the Third Arkansas, and the other
the Sixth Texas - made up my command. We marched at 1 A. M.,
and by daybreak had taken up a strong position just
beyond the Five Mile Creek. We felt that the whole army
could not drive us from that position. We waited
unmolested until about 10 A. M., when a staff-officer came
back from Van Dorn with orders for the rear guard to close
up with the army, which was halted for the day in battle
order about six miles beyond us. We were neither followed
nor molested by any one, yet next day General Halleck
sent a telegraphic dispatch, announcing to the country
that General Pope reports the capture of 10,000 rebels and
20,000 stand of arms. Had he come across that creek, he
would have found nearly 3000 of us, and would have
probably thought we were 10,000. At sunrise, I sent two
couriers back by the road over which we had marched,
with instructions to General Beal, commanding the cavalry
left in Corinth, to destroy all stores. Those couriers met
nobody upon the road. Pope had a very general reputation
amongst army people of mistaking his imaginations for
facts.

Meanwhile, my family had found protection and
generous friendship from Mr. Dick Clarke, an old
Virginian, who had greatly prospered, and lived at Verona.
He had a new and spacious residence, and for several
months they were his guests; for he would never permit
me to pay him. Our affectionate relations with him and his
household have continued always. When the army
moved away towards Iuka, I pressed Mr. Clarke to permit
me at least to remunerate him for our mess-bill.
He firmly declined, and said: “General Maury, I am a
money-making man. If you were to put me on an island in the
middle of the ocean, I should find some way to make money.
But I thank God I always can use my means to help deserving
people. And now you must leave Mrs. Maury and the children
here with me, while you go on into Kentucky, and feel sure she
will be in every way as well cared for as if she were in her own
father's home in Virginia; and in case you are made prisoner and
taken sick, you may need money. Here are letters of credit to
my correspondents in Kentucky, which will protect you.”

At Iuka, Rosecrans struck us a heavy blow. Grant failed to
co-operate, fortunately, and we got back to Tupelo
considerably worsted. We had marched northward because we
had information that all of Grant's forces had crossed into
Tennessee to join Buell. We found they hadn't. Then came the
terrible Corinth business, which has been fully written up
heretofore.

When I was at Brooke's Station, a very likely negro boy,
named Jem, was employed about the stables. He was a native
of Fredericksburg, and was born free, yet he didn't seem to
know it, or to care about it. His unfailing good-humor was equal
to any tax upon his exertions or any disregard of his dignity or
rights as a free man. He did whatever he was told to do, but did
it in his own way.

My own boy was not able to accompany me on so long and
arduous a journey as that before me, so Major Seth French
called up Jem and told him to go with me to Arkansas by next
train, and he went as my body-servant, and for three years we
took care of each other. That is, I took care of Jem, and Jem
didn't take care of me or my things, that I was ever aware of. At
Chattanooga, I
left Jem on the platform of the depot in charge of my baggage,
etc., while I went to attend to some business matters. When I
returned, my fine elk robe, blankets, and camp bedding were all
gone, and Jem seemed very much surprised, quite innocent of
any responsibility for it, and imperturbably good-humored
under my remarks about it, which were caustic.

When we reached Memphis, I left Jem in charge of my room
and effects while I went off for a short time. On my return, Jem
placidly informed me, “Colonel, somebody done took bof dem
pistols of yourn when you was gone.”

Another time, he left my ambulance and team of lively mules,
hitched ready for a trip, while he amused his leisure moments.
The team started, the bar over the top of the stable-yard gate
was too low for the carriage to pass under it, and the mules
went through, taking the body of the ambulance, the top of it
remaining under the gateway. Jem's only emotions were of
surprise “that them mules is sich fools.”

He was about six feet two inches in stature, of a most joyous
and happy disposition, and a ready wit, which made him a great
favorite with all about headquarters, whether black or white. I
cannot recall that I ever saw him show any anger or resentment,
or wear a jacket. When he was summoned from the stable to go
with me to Arkansas, he came right along just as he was. Nor
can I ever remember seeing him use water, or take a bath, except
when our canoe upset in Black River, Arkansas, when he had to
swim for his life.

Dick Holland was my first cousin. When I was made
brigadier-general for conduct in the Elkhorn campaign, I found
Dick at Corinth, after Shiloh, sergeant-major of a Mississippi
regiment. On my application, he was
appointed captain and aide-de-camp to me; and a more genial,
gallant fellow never wore a sword than Dick. He was the model
of an aide-de-camp, - knew everybody worth knowing in the
army, and made a friend of every man who ever came to
headquarters.

My staff were all bright, harmonious, and active young
fellows. We had one large mess, and care was taken to keep up a
comfortable table, to which every gentleman, whether a general
or a private, was welcome and sure of a good dinner. Dick
looked after all this, and had a peculiar aptitude for finding good
things to eat and good places to rest for himself. His success in
making himself comfortable while he was helping all of us, made
him the subject of many a joke amongst us.

I had a very fine horse which I never rode because he was too
tall for me. He suited Dick exactly, and he quietly appropriated
him, until Jem spoke of him as “Marse Dick's horse.” Once
while Dick was off on a furlough, a very gallant and able officer,
Major Brown, reported to me on the eve of a little fight. He
asked my permission to go into it, which I gave, when he said,
“General, my horses are not up yet; can you mount me?” I
called to Jem to catch his Marse Dick's horse for Major Brown.
The engagement was a skirmish with Sherman's rear guard on his
retreat from us at Chickasaw Bluff, and before long I saw
Brown coming back, carrying his saddle and bridle, and on foot.
I said, “Major, what's the matter?”

“Well, sir, I was down on the levee, when a shell from a
gunboat knocked that horse's head off. So I thought the best
thing for me to do was to bring the saddle and bridle back.”

Some days after Dick returned from his trip, all the staff
gathered about him to hear his experiences and to
tell him of ours. Jem selected his opportunity and made his way
to greet him, saying: “Sarvant, Marse Dick. I'se mighty glad to
see you safe back. Ah, Marse Dick, if you had a been here, dat
horse would never have got killed in dis world.” Dick joined in
the laugh, and the staff told the story over town; and the papers
having announced that Major Brown, of General Maury's staff,
had his horse shot under him, the girls called Dick Major Brown
ever after.

In the winter of 1862-63 we were on the Tallahatchee,
holding Grant's army in check, when news came that I had been
made a major-general. Jem was much elated at this increase of
rank, and swaggered over the other headquarters darkies
accordingly. The weather was bitter cold, and he was making up
my camp bed next morning. I said: “Jem, you must tuck in
those blankets better at the foot of the cot. My feet stuck out
last night and were almost frozen.” With an indescribable air of
humorous impudence, he turned towards me and said, “Why,
you ain't growed no longer 'en what you was, sir, is yer, since
yer been promoted?”

Jem's stature exceeded mine by about one foot. He used to
brag over the other negroes because he was a “Virginny nigger,”
and had been in the terrible battle of the first Bull Run. In his
opinion, “Thar is no soldiers like them we all left in Virginny.
The privates dar was better dan some of dese yer kurnels,” and
there never was service so dangerous as he had seen in the battle
of Manassas.

It was on the evening of the critical fight for the passage of
the Hatchie, after our two days' fighting about Corinth, that I
sent a courier to the rear to bring up a fresh horse. The bay mare
I was riding had been under saddle all of the two previous days
of action, and it was
time to relieve her. Jem came galloping up to me on my finest
horse, Roy. It was against orders for him ever to mount him. He
had his “own mar',” and he informed me that “mor'n one man had
dun shuck two hundred dollars at him fur dat mar' ”; which,
considering the easy terms on which he had acquired her, would
certainly have been a good speculation. She had strayed one
morning into the field where my horses were, and Jem took her
in there and then.

He was shifting the saddles; Roy was bridled and saddled,
and I mounted him and found he had cast a shoe - was dead
lame. Just then a shell burst in the trunk of the tree a few feet
above us. I turned to tell Jem to give me back the mare, but he
was gone at full speed, lying close down on the mare and urging
her on. He was about to throw his saddle on her when the shell
burst. He dropped the saddle and away he went.

Two days afterwards Jem made his appearance in the
“avalanche,” looking as chirpy as if he had won the battle. He
gave his experience since his sudden disappearance with his
usual fluency.

“Gen'l, when dat shell busted de mar' runned straight away.”
I had seen the flight; the rascal didn't stop to put her saddle on,
but went off head down on her crest, with legs pounding her
sides. “Ole Gen'l Price an' 'bout a dozen of dem colonels of
hisn, dey was back dar, - 'bout a hundred yards behin' what we
all was, - and she busted plum thro' 'em. De Gen'l did cuss!
‘Stop, you black rascal! Somebody kill dat nigger! He'll
stampede dis whole army!’ Now, Gen'l, I always 'lowed Gen'l
Price had mo' sense 'en dat. Dat warn't no time to stop, an'
Gen'l Price ought to ha' knowed it. De mar', she never stops
nuther - not till plum at de avalanche - and I got in de
avalanche, and ain't leff it sense, cause I
knowed you hilt me 'sponsible for yo' things what was in the
avalanche.” Investigation showed the mess-chest to be empty,
on which Jem evinced much surprise and indignation at the want
of integrity “of dese here Southern soldiers.”

After this episode Jem lost credit as a fire-eater; but his
loyalty to me never faltered, and he stayed with me until the
very last moment, when we parted affectionately. He went to
Mobile just in the flush cotton times, and when I last saw
him he was the prosperous owner and driver of a cotton
flat. I heard that he had become quite a politician in the
reconstruction times of Alabama.

THE battles and military operations in which I
was concerned have heretofore been fully
written about and published. The only
application for service I ever made during the
war was for service in the field in the army of northern
Virginia. This I made when Pemberton was placed in
command of Mississippi and its forces, and I renewed it
by every influence I could bring to bear, until I became
absorbed in the active operations of my own department.
At any time I would have given up the higher position I
held in the service to take command of a division in the
army of northern Virginia. General Early kindly explained
to me that it would have been felt an injustice to the
generals who had been so long and actively engaged in
Virginia, to place me over their heads, as would have been
the case with several of the major-generals of that army.

Great as was the compliment and the opportunity, I
deplored my promotion to the trans-Mississippi
department, and did all I could properly do to have the
order suspended. As soon as I joined Van Dorn, I told
him that while I would do everything in my power to
organize his forces, I was not willing in such a war to do
only
office work. In his hearty, generous way, Van Dorn
replied, “I appreciate your soldierly feelings, and assure
you I will not disappoint you by keeping you in an office
any longer than may be necessary for the organization of
my army, when I will secure for you a proper command in
the field.” I was accordingly promoted to brigadier-general
after the Elkhorn campaign, and had an
opportunity to make up a fine brigade, and very soon
after a fine division.

When General Van Dorn and I went to Corinth to confer
with General Albert Sidney Johnston, Van Dorn said to
him: “General, I met upon the river a fine Texas regiment,
the Second Texas, Colonel John C. Moore commanding. I
ordered it to come at once to you for this impending
battle. Please remember that it is to be one of the
regiments of the brigade I am going to make up for General
Maury.” General Johnston replied: “I will remember; but I
wish you would leave Maury with me now, and I could at
once make up a good brigade for him.” Van Dorn said he
could not spare me then, and so I escaped the disastrous
battle of Shiloh. General Johnston was a high and great
man. No man could have met him without feeling respect,
confidence, and love for him.

It was on the day before Christmas, 1862 that the news
came to us at Granada of the complete success of Van
Dorn's bold dash around Grant's army and of Grant's
precipitate retirement from our front. On Christmas Day, a
prominent and prosperous gentleman of Granada, Mr.
Mister, a native of Maryland, gave a grand dinner to
General Price and his generals, and a sumptuous table it
was that we sat down to. All were in fine humor to enjoy
it, for Grant was gone and there was no one to make us
afraid.

We had just taken our seats, when a courier arrived
with a telegram from General Pemberton, ordering Maury's
division to march at once to reinforce General Stephen D.
Lee at Vicksburg, who with only 2300 men was attacked
by Sherman with a corps of 30,000 General Price handed
the dispatch to me, and I arose at once, bade farewell to
Mr. Mister and his brilliant company of generals and
colonels, and proceeded to put the First Division in
motion to succor Lee, as noble and gallant a soldier as
ever bore that name. We had to go by rail to Jackson,
thence to Vicksburg, over the very worst line of road in
the State. It was dark of the next day before we rolled into
Vicksburg with the advance train, bearing only 400 men;
the rest of the division were distributed along the route
from Jackson.

The train bearing the Thirty-fifth Mississippi and
Bledsoe's battery was detained in Jackson several hours.
Colonel Barry and Captain Bledsoe were capital fellows
and good friends. Barry was one of the most popular and
eloquent men of Mississippi. Genial, gentle, and
humorous, he never seemed to harbor an unkind thought.
Bledsoe was one of the most distinguished battery
captains of Price's Missourians. They were convivial that
night, and occupied a box-car together, in which, after
some hours of congenial enjoyment, they rolled
themselves in their blankets and slumbered. Bledsoe was
about six feet three inches tall, and paid but little attention
to any elegance of attire. He wore boots of extraordinary
size and length, which came half-way up his long legs,
and were innocent of any coloring save the native yellow
of the unpolished hide. Barry awoke first, and seeing
Bledsoe's great boots standing by, called a negro and
gave him a dollar to black them. The darky performed his
task well, replacing them carefully.
Then Barry aroused Bledsoe, told him it was time to be
up, and lay chuckling as Bledsoe searched the car for his
yellow boots.

When at last he realized that the freshly blackened pair
before him were his own, and that he had furnished fun
for the company, his wrath arose against Barry, and he
challenged him to a duel. But that jovial colonel declined
to fight him because he “was only a captain, and he could
not think of waiving rank.” Poor Barry died of
consumption soon after the war, loved and lamented by
all classes of people. Bledsoe, when I last heard of him,
was a prosperous business man in Missouri, where every
one respected him.

I met Stephen Lee upon the battle-field from which he
had driven Sherman. The night was black as a wolf's
mouth, a cold rain was falling, and all around us lay the
dead and wounded, whose piteous moans went out for
help to the surgeons and litter-bearers, the flickering light
of whose battle lanterns appeared here and there about
the field.

On reaching Vicksburg, I said: “Lee, I am here with only
four hundred men, but the whole division will be up soon
after daylight. Please dispose of my force where and how
you think best, for though I rank you I don't know
anything about the conditions here. I don't know where
your line lies, I don't know where the enemy is; in fact, I
don't know where I am. I entrust everything to you with
the assurance that you shall have all the glory, and I will
be responsible if anything goes wrong.” This surprised
and pleased him, too. He said, “General, that is very
generous, and I thank you”; and he went to work
accordingly, my only suggestion being to urge him not to
expose himself so much as he continually did.

Stevenson came up in a day or two with a large force
- over eight thousand men. We had carried on a light
skirmish with Sherman until all of Stevenson's division
arrived, when we resolved to attack the enemy; but at
early dawn we discovered Sherman's smokes along the
Yazoo as he retreated. I sent Lee with six or seven regiments
to worry his retiring forces. Lee won great praise for his
admirable conduct of this expedition, and after my warm
endorsement and earnest request was promoted to
major-general. He is a splendid fellow, and is now president of
the admirable Agricultural College of Mississippi.

The day before Sherman's retreat, a flag of truce
brought us a letter requesting permission to bury his
dead. The letter was signed by General Morgan, and the
permission to bury was signed by Lee, who immediately
after the fight had attempted to remove Sherman's
wounded, but had been forced to desist in his humane
efforts because his people were fired upon by the enemy.
His litter-bearers therefore retired until after dark, when all
of the Federal wounded were brought to our hospitals.

I did not realize the good name of Price's corps until, on
one occasion when Grant seemed to be preparing a
descent in force upon our lines, General Stevenson
ordered me to place two regiments of my division on
picket to defend the expected point of attack. After the
usual tour of twenty-four hours, I was informed that the
rations were all gone, and went to see Stevenson about
relieving them with some other troops. He said
confidentially, “We are not willing to entrust any other
troops with the defence of that point.”

“Oh!” said I, delighted; “just let me tell them that,
and they will stay there till Gabriel blows his horn,”
and galloped off to tell the colonels to let their regiments
know that they held the post of honor.

In organizing that division, Van Dorn appointed
Generals Moore, Cabell, and Phiffer, excellent
disciplinarians, to command its three brigades, and in the
campaign against Grant in September and October at
Corinth they had shown great tenacity, being in action
three days. They went in with 4800 Rifles the first day, and
on the third three-fourths of their number were gone, yet
the remaining 1200 fought from 10 A. M. to 4 P. M. with unfaltering
devotion. General Rosecrans himself paid a marked and
generous compliment to the bravery of that division.
When Van Dorn, after the battle, detailed a party under
Colonel Barry to bury our dead, Rosecrans courteously
replied that “he could not admit them within his works, for
reasons which General Van Dorn could appreciate, but
that the latter might rest assured that all possible care
would be bestowed upon the wounded and all respect
showed the dead, especially those who fell so bravely as
the men of Maury's division.”

Rosecrans was a great soldier and a generous
gentleman. He had been my instructor at West Point, and
our relations had always been of a very cordial nature.
After the battle, he sent me a message through one of my
most gallant battery captains, Tobin, who was captured
that day, bidding him, “Tell Maury, with my regards, I
never used to think when I taught him, a little,
curly-headed boy at West Point, that he would ever trouble me
as he has to-day.” Rosecrans buried Colonel Rogers of
the Second Texas, which led the assault, with the honors
of war, and marked and enclosed his grave.

On our retreat before Grant, down through
Mississippi,
our rear guard had a skirmish with his advance at
Coffeeville. My division was ordered to march at 4 P. M., to
send all baggage, etc., to a station ten miles below us, and
to bivouac there for the night. A cold, sleety rain fell upon
us until 10 A. M., when the head of the column halted at Mr.
Brooks' large and comfortable plantation home. He was a
thrifty planter, and his fields and fences were in good
order. On his large lawn about his house stood several
dozen bee-hives, all well stored with honey, and on both
sides of his long lane, for a mile or more, high worm fences
guarded his broad fields of cotton and corn. The division
filled the whole lane. It had been carefully trained to
respect private property, and especially never to burn
rails, but as soon as we halted I ordered Flowerree, my
chief of staff, to send along the line the order that “the
division will burn rails to-night.”

A great shout, a genuine Confederate yell, roared along
the line, as they charged those fences. In a few minutes,
both sides of the lane were cleared of rails, and huge,
blazing fires cheered our wet and weary men. The fence
around the yard disappeared too, and the bee-hives
vanished, and nothing was left but the stile blocks, over
which old Mr. Brooks had been passing for forty years,
and over which he still uncompromisingly climbed as he
came in to report some fresh disaster, though nothing
was left to bar his passage through his fenceless yard. I
heard of no colds or pleurisies caused by that night's
march. I told the old gentleman to make out a liberal
account of the damage to his property and it should be
promptly paid, and a few days after he brought in a bill of
damages amounting to six hundred dollars. The
quartermaster paid it at once, and at that time
Confederate money was about as good as greenbacks,
so Mr. Brooks was happy in receiving ample
value for his losses and I was glad my men escaped
much illness.

The old gentleman and his wife were as kind and
hospitable as could be, and we were sumptuously
entertained at supper and breakfast, and comfortably bedded
all of that inclement night. There were more than a dozen
of us, generals and staff-officers, who received liberal
hospitality at the hands of that old Virginia family.

One night about eleven o'clock I was roused from my
slumber upon my saddle blanket under a bush, by the
trampling, almost upon us, of a horseman who called out
to know, “Where is General Maury?” Flowerree
scratched a match and read, “General Maury will turn over
the command of the rear guard to the next officer in
command, and proceed at once to the head of the army,
assume command of the First Division, and march
punctually at 2 A. M.” It was my third successive night
without sleep. The good and great Father Ohannon,
chaplain to Price's Missourians, was near me. He is now in
high favor with the Pope, as he ought to be, for he
promptly said, “General, you are very tired; take a drop
of the cratur'; 'twill do you good, and then you can get a
nap till half-past one.” The good Father never drank a
drop himself, but he was indefatigable in his care for his
wounded and wearied people, and always carried into
battle a quart canteen full of good whiskey.

Accordingly I was aroused at half-past one, and
proceeded to hunt up my new command. I found them
peacefully sleeping, the lines of white blankets looking
weird in the flickering light of the camp-fires. We had
some trouble in arousing five thousand men under such
circumstances. One fierce old Texan called
out to me, “Somebody'll shoot you directly, ef you don't
quit goin' about here makin' so much fuss!” But we got
them into the road at last, and marched punctually at two
o'clock. We expected to encounter the enemy at daylight.

This Texas brigade was one of the finest bodies of men
ever seen in any service, but had no idea of accurate
discipline. Their colonel was a very handsome, poetical-looking
young fellow, with voice and manner gentle as a
woman's, and the heart of a true soldier of Texas, and the
head to raise him afterwards to the Executive Chair of his
great State. May Heaven soon send him there again! He
had not then the least conception of discipline; so I and
my staff devoted ourselves to Ross' brigade, for every
potato patch and green apple tree drew them from the
ranks until we drove them back again. On the march, I
usually dressed in an old suit of corduroy and a light felt
hat, and these Texans had never seen or heard of me
before.

I heard one fellow say: “I wonder who that little fellow
is, in that white coat, anyhow? Where did he come from?
He's goin' to keep us closed up, you bet; he keeps on at
it.” Another called out to his comrades plundering a
melon patch, “Look out, boys! Here comes the pro vo!” A
third informed Ross, confidentially, to whom he was
giving some green peas just foraged, “If that little fellow
don't quit his foolishness, he'll git the stuffin' knocked out
of him, first thing he knows.”

I devoted especial attention to this brigade for nearly a
month, and they hated me accordingly. But after we had
been into action together, they used to cheer me
whenever they saw me, and called me “Little Dab.” One
thing in my favor with those Texans was my fine
horses, and the way they would carry me over places
when some of the staff would have to ride around. That
brigade and Ector's brigade of Texans, and the famous
Missouri brigade, organized, instructed, and fought by
General Henry Little of Maryland, and my Louisiana
brigade might have taken the contract for the conquest of
the Soudan, and would have kept it, too. It is very certain
they would never have formed a square in an aggressive
campaign or made, before battle, all of their preparations
for defeat. They would never have murdered a wounded
man, or destroyed the Abb-bhu-Clea wells when defeated
there and compelled to retreat, for they were true men and
self-reliant soldiers. Each man with his repeating rifle was
a small fortress.

After Ross had remounted his brigade, he one day
caught a Federal gunboat on the Yazoo River, lying in
security with all her fires out. He placed a section of his
battery above her and another below, smashed every
boat on her, and, driving her people all under deck,
compelled her to surrender. He had no boat in which to
board her, so the sergeant of the battery - it was an
Arkansas battery - and twelve men stripped, swam out
to the steamer, and, stark naked, received the surrender.
She was armed with six twenty-four-pound bronze
howitzers, which were sent to me at Mobile, and did great
service in the defence of Spanish Fort. Ross has now
become one of the leaders in politics in his State. He is
gentle as ever, and has always been an example of how
the gentlest are ever the bravest. He is a man of culture,
too, “an excellent thing” in a governor.

After we drove Sherman from Vicksburg, in December,
Grant, having been defeated in his invasion of
Mississippi by Van Dorn's brilliant coup, was permitted
to organize a great army for the capture of that city.
He brought Sherman back there with him, and meantime
we had assembled all available forces, over thirty
thousand effectives, to resist his attack. Our army
extended from Haines Bluff, seventeen miles above the
city, to Warrenton, ten miles below. General Johnston
thought that this was a faulty disposition. His view was
that a strong fort should have been made, commanding
the river at the turn above the city, to be garrisoned by
two or three thousand good troops, and the rest of the
army left to operate in the field.

General Carter L. Stevenson, a veteran and most
complete soldier, commanded Vicksburg and all of its
dependencies. He assigned me to the command of all of
the forces above the town, including twenty thousand
men, while General Barton commanded all below the
town, about ten thousand men. Stephen D. Lee
commanded all of the artillery of the place.

During the period of high water, all of the streams were
in flood, and Admiral Porter availed himself of the
opportunity to pass with his light-draft steamers up into
one of the tributaries of the Yazoo, get above Vicksburg,
and cut off communication with its back country. Sherman
supported the movement with a large body of troops, and
it seemed very near to success, when General Sam
Ferguson, a vigilant and daring young officer, intercepted
it, stopped Porter's advance, and caused his
abandonment of the whole enterprise. Along my part of
the line we could note the progress of the expedition by
the smoke of the steamers above the tree-tops, eight or
ten miles in my front. Ordering Featherston's brigade to
reinforce Ferguson, I sent Stephen Lee in a skiff through
the overflow to see if it were practicable to throw a force
behind Sherman, and so capture the whole expedition. If
he found it impossible to move
a sufficient force to accomplish this, then Lee was to make
a demonstration and create the impression that he was
there in strength, and cause the information to reach
Sherman, so as to lead him to retreat. This was all that
could be done in his rear; Ferguson had done all possible
in his front. Had Ferguson been reinforced and left in
command, it seems probable we should have captured
that whole expedition instead of only defeating and
driving it away.

Our plan was successful, and the whole expedition was
a failure, and retreated precipitately out of the country.
Ferguson reported the abandonment by the enemy of ten
fine boats left on his hands, including the commodore's
gig, which he sent to us at Vicksburg, and which we
found useful as a flag-of-truce boat. This was Sherman's
second failure with which Lee and I had to do. But for
Ferguson's fine conduct, Porter might have reached the
Yazoo.

Soon after this General Quinby came down through the
Yazoo Pass, with a corps, intending to get into the Yazoo
River at Greenwood. Loring repulsed and detained him
there until I could get to him with a force of four thousand
men from Vicksburg. The rivers were out of their banks,
the lowlands were under water, skiffs were moored to
doors of the farm-houses, and buffalo gnats swarmed
over the horses and cattle. I lost twenty-four mules one
night from their poisonous bites. In repulsing Quinby's
advance, Loring used the famous Second Texas sharp-shooters,
who fought in water up to their waists. I could
scarce find dry land enough on which to form a line of
battle, and smokes were made all along the line that the
horses might stand in them and in some measure be
protected from the gnats.

General Lloyd Tilghman was a very gallant brigadier
from Maryland, whose brigade joined my right. He
proposed that we should try and break up the enemy's
headquarters about a mile away from our front. Tilghman
had been a civil engineer, and he had a county map
showing the position of the farm-house where Quinby
had his headquarters. He trained his guns by the
compass, while I sent in a body of sharp-shooters
through the woods upon the enemy's right. We opened at
the signal, and broke up the whole establishment, which
retreated hastily for the Mississippi by way of the
Yazoo.

CHAPTER XV

Mysterious Disappearance of Young John Herndon Manly -
Grant and Porter aid in the Search for him - Conjectures and
Theories regarding his Fate - A Christening under Fire - Anecdotes
of Dr. Lord - A Magnificent Spectacle when Porter ran the Vicksburg
Batteries - An Interrupted Ball

It was about a month after we had driven Sherman's forces
away from our front that an event occurred which
plunged my family and staff into the deepest and most
anxious suspense, and which furnished one of the most
unusual and inexplicable mysteries in the many tragedies
of all the sorrowful period of our Civil War.

One morning in the latter part of January, I,
accompanied by my chief of artillery, Colonel Burnett, and
my young aide-de-camp, John Herndon Maury, son of
Commodore Maury, rode to General Stevenson's
headquarters, and, after the conclusion of my business
there, sent these two gentlemen of my staff to make a
reconnaissance near the Big Black Road. This was about
ten o'clock in the morning. I have never seen my young
aide-de-camp and kinsman since that moment, nor have I
ever been able to ascertain what was his fate.

Burnett returned to dinner at headquarters and
reported that at about one o'clock P.M., having finished
their business on the Big Black Road, young Maury left
him in order to ride down to a point opposite the canal,
and observe what the enemy were about there. No uneasiness
was felt on account of his non-return that night,
but when ten o'clock next morning had come and
Johnny, as every one called him, had not yet been seen
nor heard of, a vague anxiety manifested itself among us.
This was soon increased by hearing that on the previous
evening, about three o'clock, Generals Stevenson, Barton,
and other officers familiar with John Maury, had seen a
riderless horse, resembling his gray mare, on the far side
of a crevasse in the levee on the plantation of Mr.
Smeeds, about four miles below Vicksburg.

On learning this, I, accompanied by several officers and
couriers, rode to the point, and found John's horse, with
saddle on and bridle hanging loose. A strong levee had
been built by Mr. Smeeds from the highland, more than a
mile distant, in order to shut out the waters of a bayou
which in some seasons would otherwise inundate his
plantation. Recently this bayou had torn its way through
the levee, making a breach of about twenty yards in width,
through which the water was now running deep. The trail
of the mare led from the highlands along the levee,
entered the bayou at the crevasse and passed out at the
other side; but from the point of exit the mare had been
running back and forth so much that we were unable to
follow the trail further. We concluded, however, that
Maury had been drowned in attempting to cross the
water, and immediately procured boats and proceeded to
search for his body.

This was continued without discovering anything
which might tend to confirm our belief that he was
drowned, until next evening, when Colonel Burnett, an
experienced Texan hunter, reported that he had been
carefully examining the tracks of the mare, and that from
his observations she was evidently mounted when she
emerged from the bayou beyond the crevasse; that she
had been
ridden at a trot along the levee to a point not far from the
river; that at this point her footprints upon the levee
ceased, she having turned off from it into the overflow,
made a detour and came up on it again nearer the
crevasse; that from the point where she had thus come up
on the levee she had galloped, riderless, back to the brink
of the crevasse, near which she remained until we found
her. At the point where the mare had turned off, he found
the paper cases of several cartridges different from those
used in our army and also a fine piece of india-rubber,
such as the Confederates could not procure, which had
been used to cover the cone of a rifle. There were also
evidences of a struggle on the brink of the Mississippi
River, a few hundred yards distant, where he found the
edge of the bank freshly broken off, and signs that several
men had embarked there in a small boat.

The space in which the young officer's body must lie
had he been drowned, as we at first supposed, was small,
and as no trace of it had been found in the course of our
thorough search, we decided, on hearing Burnett's report,
that he had been captured by some scouting party from
the army across the river, and had been borne a prisoner
to the other shore. The anxiety of his friends was at once
allayed, and some of them even ventured on a laugh at his
expense; for this was the second time he had experienced
capture while reconnoitring alone. Some of Grant's army
had made him prisoner in November, near Holly Springs,
and he had only been back with us a month. No one
doubted that he was now safe and in good hands, and
that his exchange would soon be effected.

Next morning Major Flowerree, adjutant-general of my
division, was sent under flag of truce to General Grant to
make inquiry about Lieutenant Maury. To our grief and
surprise, he returned in the evening with the
report that nothing was known of him by the Federal
commander; but with courteous assurances from General Grant
and Admiral Porter, who knew young Maury well, that they
would take all possible means to ascertain if he had been taken
prisoner by any party of theirs, and would communicate to me
the earliest intelligence they could procure. Thus we were again
thrown back upon the fear that he had been drowned in crossing
the bayou, and for two weeks the locality where his mare was
found was watched, cannon were fired over it, and all the space
was carefully dragged.

About this time other kindly messages were received by me
from General Grant and from Admiral Porter and other naval
officers, assuring me that great pains had been taken and careful
inquiry made after Lieutenant Maury, but that they had
ascertained nothing calculated to remove the painful belief that
he had been drowned. General Grant had been my own
schoolmate and comrade in arms, and my young cousin was well
known to Admiral Porter and other officers of the United States
Navy, who had met him while he was a boy at the Observatory,
of which his father was so long the chief. The conviction was
then positive, and is now, that those officers were sincere in
their efforts to find him and to aid me in my search.

Some months had passed, when reports came to me from
several sources that a young officer named Maury, an aide-de-camp,
had been captured near Vicksburg, and had been seen in
Memphis and at other places in the spring, on his way to the
prison at Johnson's Island. Returned prisoners from Johnson's
Island reported to me that they had seen and conversed with my
young cousin there, and so many points of identity were
established that hope revived once more, but only to be lost
again by learning that a young gentleman named James Fontaine
Maury, while serving in the battle near Grand Gulf as aide-de-camp
to General Bowen, had been made prisoner in May, and
sent to Johnson's Island. A very remarkable personal
resemblance between John Herndon Maury and James Fontaine
Maury, their common family ties, and identity of rank and of
age - they were both nineteen years old - frequently caused
them to be confounded with each other, and gave rise to the
rumor that the former was still alive.

Soon after the fall of Vicksburg, when in Mobile, I received a
letter, ill-written and from an evidently uneducated writer,
informing me that John had been made a prisoner and had died
of pneumonia the third day after his capture, on board a Federal
gunboat lying off Vicksburg. At the time very little importance
was attached to this letter, but not long after, Colonel Underhill,
a gallant young Scotchman, who had resigned his commission in
the British army to serve in that of the Confederacy, wrote to
me a very clear and consistent narrative which he had received
from Captain Smith of the Thirteenth Iowa regiment.

Colonel Underhill and Captain Smith were from the same
county in Scotland, and met during a truce between the lines at
Vicksburg, Underhill then being aide-de-camp to General
Stephen D. Lee. During their sociable conversation on this
occasion, Smith told Underhill that on the 27th of January he
had crossed from the mouth of the canal with a party of four or
five men to the levee on Smeeds' plantation, in order to ascertain
if we were constructing any batteries there; that soon after
reaching the levee, he observed a Confederate officer riding down
it toward the point where he and his party were concealed, and,
lying close, they waited until he came up and dismounted. While
he was looking through his field-glasses
at the Federal works on the opposite bank, Smith and his
men sprang upon him and secured him. The mare broke
away from them, ran out into the overflow, and,
remounting the levee, galloped back to the point she had
come. As soon as it became dark, Smith and his party
recrossed the river with their prisoner and sent him to
Grant's headquarters, where he believed he was when my
flag of truce came to inquire for him two days after.
Captain Smith showed Underhill the field-glass which he
had taken from his prisoner and retained as a trophy of
his exploit. It was one that I had loaned John that
morning, and was marked with my name and rank.

There are several points in this narrative which render it
worthy of belief. It agreed in the main with Burnett's
observations and the theory deduced from them, of which
neither Smith nor Underhill had ever heard. There was
never any evidence procured of the drowning, and
capture was the probable alternative. The field-glasses
seemed to fix the latter fact, while the respectable standing
of the two gentlemen, and the absence of any motive or
object for such a fiction leave us no right to question any
part of their story. As to Smith's belief that young Maury
was at Grant's headquarters while that general was
denying all knowledge of him, we must remember that
Smith could only know that Maury had been sent to the
headquarters; while Grant, having just arrived at the army
with large reinforcements, and being occupied in
reorganizing his forces, could not be expected to be
interested or even informed of the capture of a lieutenant.
I have never doubted the sincerity of his desire to aid me
as far as possible in my efforts to unravel this sad
mystery, and believe he would have gladly done anything
in his power toward it.

The writer of the letter I received at Mobile stated that
my cousin died of pneumonia three days after his capture.
Soon after Underhill's testimony reached me, I received a
verbal message from a lady in Vicksburg, who knew me
and my young kinsman. She stated that a lieutenant of the
Federal navy came to her house, accompanied by a man
named Griffen, who had deserted to that service, and who
had been employed about my headquarters, and who had
known young Maury. Griffen told her this same story - of
young Maury's being ill with pneumonia and dying on a
gunboat within three days of his capture.

For more than fifty years the father, the uncles, and
many other relatives of this young gentleman were well
known officers of the naval service of the United States.
Having passed almost his whole life at the Observatory, he
was himself well known to scores of naval officers. These
circumstances, coupled with the further facts that he was a
staff-officer of the general second in command of the army
at Vicksburg, the immediate, active, diligent, and persistent
search made for him, the cordial interest evinced by
Generals Grant and Sherman, Admiral Porter, and Captain
Breeze, and other officers of the Federal service in the
investigations made as to his fate, combine to render the
mystery which enshrouds it as extraordinary as it is
inexplicable, while the beautiful traits, the fine intellect, the
excellent attainments, and the gallant yet gentle bearing of
the young soldier invest it to all who knew him with a
peculiar and especial sadness. Thirty years have come and
gone since the events narrated here took place, yet not
once has the curtain which shrouds the actual facts in this
pathetic drama of the war been lifted; and we who knew
and loved the chief actor in it shall learn no more until we,
too, have followed him and crossed to the other shore.

On my return to Vicksburg after the Yazoo expedition,
I found orders awaiting me to proceed at once to Knoxville and
take command of the department of East Tennessee. This was
an agreeable promotion, for I should escape the fate of
Vicksburg, and be so far on my way to Virginia, where I still
hoped to have a command in the field. Before leaving, we
desired to have our little son baptized, and the good Bishop
Green of Mississippi, who was in the city, kindly consented to
perform the ceremony at my headquarters. General Stevenson
was godfather, and the members of my staff all assembled for
the occasion. The Rev. Dr. Lord, the dearly loved and very able
rector of the parish, and his wife, were also present. While the
ceremony was progressing, Grant opened a new battery upon
my headquarters, and throughout the baptismal service the
shriek of the falling shells sounded in our ears: one of them
actually fell in the stable near at hand and exploded there; but
the bishop went calmly on until the end, for Vicksburg had been
under bombardment so long and without fatal results that all
were accustomed to it.

Dr. Lord was one of the most remarkable men I have ever
known. He was for many years the rector of the church in
Vicksburg, where he won the confidence and affection of his
people by his precept and example, too. His wonderful
versatility of information and his charming conversational
capacity made him a welcome guest in every home in his parish.

Some time after the war, while I was the guest of Major
Flowerree in Vicksburg, Dr. Lord was invited to dine with me.
The night before I had been to see Ben de Bar play Falstaff -
the best Falstaff I have ever seen. Dr. Lord took up the subject,
and made the most interesting discussion of Shakespeare's
greatest character I had ever listened to. He plainly proved that
Falstaff was
no coward, and when I asked for his exposition of the difference
between wit and humor, he recapitulated the history of the Fat
Knight, showing where he was witty, where humorous, and
where both witty and humorous. We listened to him, absorbed,
for an hour, when he left us to attend to some parochial duty.
As soon as he had gone, I said to Flowerree, “I have never had
such a treat; I seem to have struck upon Dr. Lord's specialty.”

“You were never more mistaken in your life,” he replied.
“No matter what the subject is, he seems to have mastered it.
Some years ago there was a club of intelligent gentlemen here in
Vicksburg, who met to enjoy conversation. Dr. Lord was a
member, and no matter what might be the question under
discussion, he was the master of it. One day Dr. Crump
received a new book upon whaling and other arctic experiences;
I believe it was called ‘Three Years before the Mast.’ He read
the book and was charmed with it, and passed it around to
several other gentlemen of the club, that they might also read it
and introduce the subject at their next gathering, and for once
know something with which Dr. Lord was not familiar.

“Accordingly, when the evening came, the subject of
whale-fishing was taken up by these freshly informed
gentlemen, with the expectation that their rector would
for once be at a loss, but they reckoned without their
host; for in a few moments the reverend gentleman took up
his parable, and instructed them all in facts about whales
and the Arctic Circle, such as they had never heard of
before, and finally informed them he had been a
sailor on that very ship they had been reading about.” He
remained with his people during the severe trials and dangers of
their terrible siege, and ever bore with him their affectionate and
grateful memories.

On the night after the christening, my wife awoke about
midnight, saying, “Dab, the pickets are firing on your lines!” I
sprang up and called to Jem to saddle my horse. He seemed to
be always awake, no matter at what hour he might be called, and
he could “catch a horse” quicker than any one I ever saw. By
the time I was booted and spurred, the horse was ready at the
door, and I mounted and galloped off towards the firing. All of
my staff were at a ball; but as I passed my couriers' quarters I
shouted for them to turn out and follow, and as I crossed the
bridge I heard the clatter of horses' feet behind and found one of
my smartest Texans was close at hand. He joined me, and
together we mounted the hill overlooking the river in time to see
the passage of Porter's whole fleet, as he came around the bend
above the city and past its front, on his way down to unite with
Farragut.

It was the grandest spectacle of my life. For four miles our
batteries were in full play, blazing away at the line of gunboats
making their way past them, and giving shot for shot as they
went swiftly by. The whole landscape was as light as day, for
before the first steamer swung round the point, our pickets
across the river had promptly fired their calcium lights and had
set torches to the huge piles of pine which stood ready at hand,
and were then securely under cover. Porter gamely led, and hove
to off the town to send a few shots along its streets, which
stampeded the entire population, especially the ball, whence the
gallant young officers dashed away to their posts, leaving the
ladies to their own devices. These fled in their slippered feet and
light robes for the nearest shelter. Vicksburg was well supplied
with bomb-proofs, into which whole families might retire when
a bombardment was hot, but some of the belles, panic-stricken,
that night did not stop even there, but hurried over the muddy
roads until they were out of cannon range, and took refuge in
the nearest country houses.

Believing that Porter's whole fleet would join in the
bombardment of the city, I sent a courier back to my wife, with
instructions to get at once in the ambulance and drive out of the
town until she reached a position beyond the reach of the
enemy's guns, but she decided to remain where she was, and
stayed serenely there, explaining to me afterwards that she “did
not wish to take the baby into the night air.”

The value of Vicksburg was now gone, for Grant could cross
over below the city. Stevenson immediately ordered every man,
except the guards of the batteries, to march at once below
Vicksburg and defeat his landing. Pemberton countermanded the
order, permitting only Tracey's brigade and Cockrell's Missouri
brigade to go to meet him. These fine troops under General
Bowen detained Grant a day or two; Stevenson's whole army
would have driven him into the river.

Next day I went off to Knoxville, where I remained for about
six weeks in command of the department of East Tennessee.
Here, as elsewhere, we were the recipients of much kindness;
Mrs. Sanborn, who had a lovely home in the suburbs, being
especially hospitable to us.

CHAPTER XVI

Transferred to the Command of the Department of the Gulf, at Mobile -
Experiences with “Galvanized Yankees” - How a Spy was trapped -
Colonel Henry Maury's Adventurous Career - His Coolness and Bravery in
Peril - A Duel - Tried by Court-Martial and acquitted - Anecdotes of
Bishop Wilmer, of Alabama

AT the end of six weeks I was ordered to take command of
the Department of the Gulf, with headquarters at Mobile,
altogether an interesting and agreeable command. No
kinder or more generous people ever lived than these.
Some time after our arrival, Judge Dargan came to me
and, introducing himself, placed his furnished house at
our disposal. It was elegant and comfortable, with ample
lawn and garden, and here we lived until the end of the
war. The judge occupied one room in the wing, and came
every evening into our sitting-room to converse with us,
and became a warm and lifelong friend of me and of mine.
His own family had moved up to Tuskeegee for the war.

Soon after assuming command of the Department of the
Gulf, I was notified that a steamer under flag of truce
would arrive in Mobile Bay with the sick and wounded
Confederate soldiers from Vicksburg. This was one of the
many considerate and kindly acts of General Grant, who
never made war upon women or other unfortunates who
might fall in his power. Of this, and of all the other qualities of a
soldier's character
he has left his record in the grateful memories of the
Southern people. We cordially welcomed our weary and
wounded comrades, and went down in steamers to meet
them and escort them to that charming bay-shore resort at
Point Clear, where the hotel and cottages awaited their
reception, and no soldiers of the Confederacy ever
enjoyed a happier destiny than these in exchanging the
damp and soggy climate of Vicksburg for the fresh salt
breezes and sparkling waters of Mobile Bay, with its
fishing and bathing and famous oysters, and now and
then a boat-load of limes and bananas and other tropical
luxuries brought in by the blockade runners.

As I went from cot to cot in my visits through the
wards of our temporary hospitals, I noticed a poor,
emaciated lad of not more than sixteen years, who seemed
very near to death's door. I inquired of him as to his name
and home, and he replied, “My name is Waymack, and I
am from Hanover County, Virginia.” He had been a
member of a Virginia artillery company, and I did my best
to make him feel that he was once more in the house of his
friends. Under good care and the healthful climate, he
rallied, and as soon as his company was fit for duty I
made it the headquarters guard of my department. I found
great comfort in my Virginia guard, and a sense of mutual
good feeling existed between them and the members of
my household, which was not a little enhanced by my
wife's invariable remembrance of them at dinner-time. A
year or so before the final engagements which terminated
the siege of Mobile, two battalions of “Galvanized
Yankees” were sent to me, to form part of my army. They
had been captured in some recent battle, and being all
Irishmen declared that they would rather fight for us than
for
the North, and were accordingly sworn in to serve till the
end of the war, and duly enrolled and equipped. I sent
them up to meet a raid into Mississippi, but no sooner did
the rascals come in sight of the blue uniforms than they
raised the white flag, and, going over in a body,
surrendered at discretion.

One day, some months after this, Waymack came to my
office and stated that he had something very important to
tell me. He was very much excited and alarmed lest his
interview with me should be known. I satisfied his fears,
and he informed me that in the same fort in which his
battery was then stationed, Fort Jeb Stuart, in a company
of the First Louisiana Artillery, there were two
“Galvanized Yankees,” who were preparing to desert to
the enemy, and to take with them drawings and plans of
the defences of Mobile. They were Germans, he said, and
very powerful men, and one of them had been made a
sergeant. A man residing in Mobile was their accomplice.

I assured the boy of his absolute safety, commended
his zeal and courage, and enjoined on him increased
vigilance as to the conduct, etc., of the spies. I then sent
for General Cockrell, commanding the famous Missouri
brigade, now a staunch and able member from Missouri in
the United States Senate, and asked him to select from
among his men a good and efficient detective from St.
Louis, and detach him to report to me for special service,
cautioning him and Colonel Fuller, of the First Louisiana
Artillery, to make no comment on the irregularity of the
order. I transferred the Missouri sergeant to the Louisiana
company, where he soon won the confidence of the
intending deserters, and, together with a trustworthy
comrade of his own, entered into their plans. I was
especially anxious to get hold
of the citizen of Mobile who was their confederate in the
proposed treachery, and the detective fully shared this
desire, and delayed the time of their desertion until he
found the spies impatient to be off, and, he thought,
somewhat suspicious of him.

They got all of the plans of Mobile and its defences,
etc., completed, and set out at midnight through the pines
toward Pascagoula, near which the Federal army lay. The
Confederate sergeant and his comrade bore them
company for some miles from Mobile, when each man
closed with his antagonist. Next day my two emissaries
returned, bringing me the papers they had taken from the
deserters. They would have been of inestimable value to
the enemy in his attack upon the place. The Confederate
sergeant told me that in all of his experience as a
detective, he had never had to deal with so clever and
dangerous a man as that German sergeant was. In the
chances and changes of the years since then, I have lost
sight of little Waymack, although I have tried to learn
something of his whereabouts, but I hope he is alive and
prosperous; for he was as game and true a lad as I ever
knew.

Until Farragut's fleet entered Mobile Bay, the blockade
runners were very active carrying out cotton and bringing
in stores from Havana, and thus we were still in touch
with the outer world, and Mobile was to our western
armies what Richmond was to the army of Virginia. Spies,
too, were active there, spies for us and spies for General
Banks, sometimes for both at once. Many applications
were made to me to permit the government cotton at
Mobile to be traded with the Federal government for army
supplies, but as I required the supplies to be delivered
first, nothing was ever accomplished except that I was
ordered by our government
to send one thousand bales of cotton to New York
to be used to buy overcoats and blankets for our
prisoners. An agreement was entered into between the
two governments, and General Beal, a prisoner of war,
was released and stationed in New York to receive and
sell the cotton, which was done with the fidelity of that
most excellent officer and gentleman.

One day, in 1865, a man came to me with papers
approved by Lincoln, Stanton, and Farragut, authorizing
him to exchange army supplies with me for cotton. He
was a pleasant-looking man, whom I will call S-----.
He said he was from North Carolina, and an ardent
Southern sympathizer, a class which I have always felt
would bear watching. I told him that many such
propositions had reached me, but that no trade could be
made, because his government wished to have the cotton
before delivering the stores, and I must have the stores
before delivering the cotton. He thought he could arrange
to give me the stores first, and receive the cotton at
Mobile in payment, so I told him to go ahead and see
what he could do. The provost-marshal furnished him
with passes to go and come between the Federal
commander General Gordon Granger and myself, and at
the same time had him closely watched, and he went back
and forth many times, but made no progress in our trade.

Many weeks passed in these fruitless efforts, and
meantime the enemy was making his grand and final
preparations for the reduction of Mobile, and I, by my
complete system of scouts, was daily posted as to his
force and movements. One Sunday there was a ring at my
door, and the servant announced that Mr. S----- wished to
see me on urgent business. My wife, who was sitting with me,
left the room, and he was ushered in, somewhat flustered
by the import of his tidings.

“I am just from General Granger at Pascagoula,” he
said, “and Canby's army is actually marching against
you.” All of which I already knew. After I had heard him
through, and had got all he could or would tell, he drew
from his breast pocket a package of assorted kid gloves
and handed them to me, “as a present for your lady.” I
kindly declined them for her, saying she was already
sufficiently supplied with gloves. He seemed a little
mortified that I did so, and retired at once. My wife came
in to hear the news of the enemy, and I said to her, “Mr. S-----
was very kind, for he brought you a dozen of Jouvin's
kids.” Beaming with delight, she said, “Oh, where are
they?”

“I declined them, telling him you were sufficiently
supplied.”

“How could you tell such a story, when you know that
I have not had a kid glove on for a year!”

“But,” I urged, “remember that I may have to hang
him to-morrow, and it would never do for you to be
wearing those gloves then.”

Sure enough, the next day a worthy young officer
attached to my headquarters, Major Sam Duncan, of
Natchez, gave me a letter brought to him by S----- from
Duncan's father in New York, telling him the days of the
Confederacy were numbered, that he must get out of it at
once, and that a man-of-war's boat would receive him near
Dog River and take him aboard of a vessel bound for New
York, etc. Accordingly, S----- was closely watched, and
that evening, fifteen minutes before the train left for
Meridian, he was arrested and taken up to the prison there,
to be dealt with when a court should have time to try him.
A few weeks after, the surrender came, and he, with all
other prisoners, was liberated, and so it happened I never
hanged a man.

I never saw S----- until six or eight months after the war. I
was on my way from the depot to the Battle House, in
Mobile, when I saw a man approaching me, whom, as he
drew near, I recognized as S-----. He came straight for me, and
I knew he was after me. There was nobody in sight, and I
was convinced that a severe beating was the least that I
could expect; for he was a very able-bodied fellow and
had me in his power, I being entirely unarmed. What was
my relief, as S----- drew near, to observe a kindly smile stealing
over his face, as he extended his hand to seize mine,
saying, “General Maury, I have come for the honor of
shaking you by the hand, and telling you that, by G-d,
sir, you are the only honest man that I met during the war
from Abe Lincoln down!” I never shook a man's hand
with more sincere pleasure in all my life, and as soon as I
could I wrote my wife how those gloves had saved me.
Some weeks ago I went into the office of the Secretary of
the Navy, when a man sprang up from the sofa and
claimed acquaintance, saying, “I am S-----, whom you tried to
hang in Mobile.” I informed him I felt glad I did not do it.
On further talk he told me he was so anxious to shake
hands at our last meeting because he was afraid of me.

During my command of that department, General Bragg
invited me to accept a fine command in his army, which I
declined, preferring to be directly under the control of the
War Department, as I then was. Afterwards Hood applied
to the President to have me appointed lieutenant-general,
and ordered to a corps of his army, but the President
replied I could not then be taken from Mobile, but he
would promote me to the rank of lieutenant-general. He
told General Taylor this, and in Mrs. Davis' book she
states that such was his purpose.

During all the period of my service at Mobile, my kinsman,
Colonel Henry Maury, was with me, and no man in the
community had more friends, perhaps, than he. His
handsome face, cordial manner, and ready wit attracted
toward him every one with whom he came in contact. His
courage was unquestioned, while his loyalty to his friends,
and his kindness of heart, won him lasting esteem. He had
gone from Fredericksburg to Mobile while yet a youth, and
made his home there. He entered the Navy as a boy, and was
present at the siege of Vera Cruz. Afterward he entered the
merchant service, and by the time he was twenty years old
had command of a barque. General Walker, the filibuster,
employed him to take a battalion of recruits down to
Nicaragua. Mr. Marcy, the Secretary of State, sent a
marshal in a revenue cutter to detain him in Mobile Bay.
Harry received the marshal courteously, and acquiesced in
his own detention. He took him into his cabin, and
entertained him with lavish hospitality, when he persuaded
his guest to sleep aboard the barque, urging that he could
not possibly escape with his ship, for the cutter was lying
close by and he would show a lantern from the barque's peak
all night, all of which the marshal understood, and retired to
sleep.

After some hours, all being quiet aboard both vessels,
Henry shifted the lantern from the peak to the end of a
long spar which he let down into the mud of the bottom.
The wind favored him, he slipped his cable, dropped
down the bay, and by daylight was out of sight of land,
and well on his way towards his destination. It was not
until the second day that he met a vessel bound for the
States, to which he courteously transferred his guest,
with an apologetic letter to the Secretary of State for
having been compelled to take such a liberty. He was
short-handed, his filibusters could aid his crew but little in
the stormy weather they encountered, and the Susan was
wrecked off the island of Ruatan. None were lost, and the
British governor treated them with so much kindness that
his government recalled him.

After the close of the troubles in Nicaragua, a Captain
Henri de Rivière, who had been dismissed from the French
army and had cast his lot with General Walker's
expedition, returned with the surviving adventurers to
Mobile, and became a favorite in the gay society there.
His impudent deportment aroused Henry's indignation,
and a duel resulted. A steamer took the duellists down to
Pascagoula. Doctors Knott and Ross went along as
surgeons, and a great many gentlemen of Mobile, who
desired “to see Harry shoot the Frenchman.”

I was told by several eye-witnesses the remarkable
history of this curious affair. The ground was near the
residence of the proprietor, and a hammock was swinging
in the veranda. Captain de Riviere advanced to Captain
Maury and asked if he might take an hour's nap in that
hammock, as he felt very nervous. His request was
granted, and his second aroused him at the end of an
hour. He arose apparently quite refreshed, and took his
place for the duel. They were to begin firing with
revolvers at twelve paces, to advance a pace after each
shot, and to stop if either fell. At the first shot, the
Frenchman staggered backwards and seemed about to
fall. His antagonist lowered his pistol, but kept his thumb
upon the hammer and his eye upon his enemy, whom he
detected in the act of cocking his pistol, but before he
could raise it and fire Maury shot him in the mouth. He
was taken to the home of a gentleman in Mobile, whose
sympathetic wife and beautiful daughter cared for him
during some weeks.

When he had recovered sufficiently to travel, he
departed, accompanied by his devoted nurses. The head
of the family went in pursuit of them, reaching Havana
just after they had left for Nassau, and arriving at Nassau
after they had sailed for New York. In New York their
escapade was arrested by a lady who came out of a
convent and claimed Captain Henri de Rivière as her
lawfully wedded spouse. Then at last the bereft husband
and father recovered his delinquent family, and returned
with them to Mobile. Towards the close of the war
between the States, the Marquis de Rivière died in
France, leaving his great fortune to his younger brother,
Captain de Rivière. The head of the enamoured family still
living in Mobile assented to the urgent request of the
new marquis that he would escort his wife and daughter
to Paris, where the latter became the Marquise de Riviere.
They lived in great splendor till the Franco-Prussian War,
when the marquis was killed in battle.

During the war between the States, Colonel Maury
commanded the lower defences in Mobile Bay. One day
he went up to Mobile in the steamer which plied between
Fort Morgan and the city. He reached the evening boat
too late, but persuaded a boatman to take him down the
bay in his skiff. The wind was blowing half a gale and
rising, and the little craft bounded over the heavy seas,
sometimes half hidden from the view of the anxious
watchers on the wharves of the city. The approach to
Fort Morgan was more anxiously watched by the
garrison, all of whom came out upon the wharf. They
feared their colonel was in that boat, knowing well his
daring nature. When the dingy reached the landing place
it was impossible to land, so violent was the rush of the
water seaward. The colonel sprang into the
raging sea, and, swimming to land, called for volunteers
to man the launch and go with him to the rescue of the
boatman, who was being rapidly borne out to the Gulf,
where he would inevitably perish. The launch, steered by
his own steady hand, soon overhauled and rescued the
poor fellow. This was only one of the many noble feats of
daring which marked his whole life.

General Gordon Granger was stationed with his corps at
Pascagoula a month or two previous to the attack on
Mobile. Thence he detached a brigade to a narrow but
deep creek about half-way to Mobile, and I ordered
Colonel Maury with three regiments of horse to go down
and force the brigade back into Pascagoula. Soon after he
marched, a courier came in hot haste, bearing a dispatch
from Colonel Maury, reporting his progress. I think that
when he sent it he was about three miles from town. I
thought it very unaccountable until several other equally
unimportant bulletins arrived, when I said, “Henry is
drunk, and nothing will come of his expedition”; and so it
was. Next day he came back, having done nothing, and I
was not surprised when charges of drunkenness were
preferred against him by officers of his command. I
ordered him under arrest, and to be tried by the military
court of the department. To my surprise, he was acquitted,
and I asked the president-colonel-judge how it happened.
He said, “Three officers of high intelligence and character
swore that he was drunk, and we all thought that he was
done for and deeply deplored it, for we all love him; but
bless your soul, sir, Harry produced six officers of equal
character, who swore, point-blank, that he was sober, and
we had to acquit him!”

When I sent Colonel Maury into Jones County to break
up that secession movement, he dealt with the
traitors very roughly, so that after the war he was
pursued very actively by the survivors, and his fine
horses were seized. The aid of the United States troops
was invoked, and would have been employed, but that I
went to see General Canby about it, and he at once
peremptorily forbade it. Meantime the colonel went to
Selma and secured the protection of the Federal
commander there, a kindly old Scotchman, who, like many
other good and sensible people, was charmed by Henry's
wit and bonhomie. He invited the colonel to a sumptuous
lunch, at which there was a big Federal major, who
seemed inclined to quarrel with Henry, who never needed
two invitations to a fight. Toasts and songs went round,
and the major made several flings at the colonel, who
treasured them up, until presently Colonel Maury was
called upon for a song. He said if the company would
accept the change, he would offer a conundrum instead of
a song. The proposition was vociferously applauded, the
big major being among the most enthusiastic. “Why are
the Confederates like Lazarus?” asked Maury. The major
gave a contemptuous solution. “No,” said the colonel,
reaching across the table to indicate and emphasize his
reply; “because we have been licked by dogs!” The
Scotch general loudly applauded, swearing “he had not
read so good a conundrum in the newspapers for a year.”

The genial and witty Bishop Wilmer, of Alabama, was a
warm friend and admirer of Harry, and greatly enjoyed his
conundrum; and when, after the war, he went to New York
to invoke assistance for the churches so desolated in our
Southern country, he was induced to relate this incident.
A clergyman present, who was not pervaded by that
Christian spirit which all bishops and the clergy especially
should illustrate, said with
much heat, “Well, sir, if that is your feeling, why do you
come to us now for aid?” “Oh,” said the bishop, “to
get a hair of the dog!”

The bishop himself sometimes left a lesson by a witty
repartee, as he did once when the train in which he was
travelling rolled down an embankment. As he picked
himself up a rough fellow near him, who had been
annoying the passengers by his coarse and profane talk,
said to this old Virginia gentleman, “Well, Bishop, we all
like to went to hell together that time!” “Speak for
yourself, my friend,” was the ready response. “My ticket
is for the other place.” May God send him long life and
strong health, that he may continue to teach all other
bishops how potent is the influence of gentleness and
unfailing good temper in them above all other men. Ever a
father to his people in the cruel war we endured together,
we respect and love him and trust him now.

While colonel of the Thirty-second Alabama, then a
part of Johnston's army, and stationed at Jackson,
Colonel Maury was wounded in the right breast by a rifle-ball.
He was relating an anecdote to a group of
appreciative brother-officers when this happened, and
coolly finished his story before turning to one of them, to
whom he said, “Please put your ear to my chest and see
if you hear any noise in there.” “No.” “Then, boys, I'm
good for a ninety days' furlough.” Several years after the
war, he died from the effects of that very wound.

I was living in New Orleans at the time his death
occurred, and the circumstances which attended it and my
own connection with it were very curious. I may state at
the outset that I am not at all a superstitious person, and
that I have no theory to advance or explanation
to offer with regard to the following facts. Henry
was then residing in Mobile, and when I had last heard
from him he had been in his accustomed health and spirits.
One morning, in the spring of 1868, I awoke and started up,
saying, “Where is Henry?” My wife, aroused by my
voice, replied, “You are dreaming!” “No,” I said
emphatically; “I am not dreaming. I saw Henry standing
by my side, and he was about to speak to me, when
suddenly he disappeared.” She argued with me, as was
natural, that it was all a dream, but I could not shake off
the conviction of its reality. As I stepped into the car to
go down to my office after breakfast, a gentleman who
was reading a paper looked up and greeted me cordially,
saying, “General, I am glad to see you, for I just thought I
had read of your sudden death,” - handing me the paper
in which was a telegram stating that “General H. Maury
had died in Mobile early that morning.” Henry had been
promoted to the rank of brigadier-general just at the close
of the war. Our personal relations were very warm and
affectionate, and I was his nearest of kin in that part of the
world.

CHAPTER XVII

Recollections of General Forrest - His Personal Appearance and Traits -
His Characteristics as a Commander - Never surprised or attacked - Ignorant
of Tactics, but Great in Strategy - Instances of his Aggressive Self-Reliance,
his Rapidity of Movement, and his Personal Power over his Men - The Fort
Pillow Episode

DURING my command of the Department of the Gulf, I
was constantly occupied in strengthening the
defences of Mobile and in driving out raids which
were made into Mississippi and Alabama by Generals
Grierson, Straight, Rousseau, Davidson, and
Sherman. In each effort of mine to intercept the
progress or thwart the intentions of these
expeditions, I was ably seconded by General Nathan
Bedford Forrest. Indeed, I relied so implicitly upon his
skill and judgment that I never hampered him with
especial instructions. His natural qualifications as a
soldier were phenomenal, and our association
together was such that I am able to bear personal
testimony to his great ability as a military leader,
which deserves full recognition and appreciation at
the hands of his people.

Forrest was born in 1821, in one of the counties of
Tennessee, upon its southern border. He was the eldest
of twelve children, and when his father died he was
sixteen years old, and at once assumed the care of his
family. He had had but little opportunity for learning,
because even elementary schools were rarely found in
that wild country, and he scarcely read before he was a
grown man. And even during the war, when he had
become the greatest soldier of his time, he dictated all of
his correspondence. It lacked nothing in force and
clearness, however deficient he was in his syntax, and
etymology. His early life was a period of privation and a
hard struggle to maintain his mother and his younger
brothers. He went early into active life, and from the very
outset evinced those extraordinary capacities for
business and that wonderful self assertion which were the
marked characteristics of his career. He became a horse-trader
and a negro-trader, and made a large fortune in
these avocations, while maintaining a character for strict
probity and for kind and fair dealing rarely ever found in
such callings.

When the war broke out, Forrest was in the prime of his
mental and physical powers. Over six feet in stature, of
powerful frame, and of great activity and daring, with a
personal prowess proved in many fierce encounters, he
was a king among the bravest men of his time and
country. He was among the first to volunteer when war
broke out, and it was a matter of course that he should be
the commander of the troopers who flocked to his
standard. From the very outset he evinced his
extraordinary capacity for war, and in his long career of
great achievements no defeat or failure was ever charged
to him.

When I first met him, the army of the West had been
moved out of the lines about Corinth to offer battle to
Halleck's forces, which was declined by that general.
Forrest, already famous, had gone alone into one of the
abandoned redoubts, whose only garrison was the
chaplain of a regiment whom, with his horse, he brought
out with him. I observed him with great
interest, and felt the influence of his wonderful
self-reliance. He could never brook the dictation of any
commander, and he conceived and executed his own plans,
moving when and where he saw work was to be done, and
reporting only the successful result, which was always
surprising to his enemy and to his commander. In all his
long and arduous campaigns and scores of battles, he
never was surprised or attacked. His successes were
achieved with forces much inferior to his enemy. With
unfailing daring and circumspection, he would make his
tentative attack, or, as he expressed it, “I will give 'em a
dare, anyhow.” He was a great poker-player and illustrated
some of its principles and technicalities upon the battle-field.
When he found his enemy too strong for him at the
point of attack, he would pull out and find a weak place,
where he never failed to make in and win his fight. When
once asked how it was he always succeeded in his battles,
he replied, “I don't know, but I reckon it's because I always
get there first with the most men.” Unknowingly, he had
announced and illustrated Napoleon's great principle of
success in battle. When he found an enemy he could not
attack with any hope of success, as was once the case with
a strong blockhouse garrisoned with negro troops and
commanded by a stout-hearted Dutchman, who firmly
declined to surrender and dared him to attack, he
temporized and invited a parley. Forrest knew he could not
carry the place without heavy loss, and that a large
reinforcement was coming on the railroad to the enemy. In
twenty minutes he convinced the stout-hearted colonel
that he would certainly carry his works, and that if he had
to do so he could not restrain his men, who would take no
negro prisoners, and the whole garrison was surrendered
without firing
a shot. Meantime he had sent a detachment down the
road, derailed the train, and took in the reinforcements.

His insubordination was only excused by the wonderful
success he constantly won while having his own way. In
April, 1863, Bragg's army was up in Tennessee. Van Dorn
commanded all of the cavalry, some eight thousand horse.
Forrest commanded a brigade, and captured a Federal
brigade commanded by General Coborn. Bragg sent orders
through Van Dorn to Forrest, to turn over all his captured
horses, arms, etc., to the ordnance and quartermaster
officers of the army. The property not being forthcoming,
the general wrote peremptorily to Van Dorn to call on
Forrest to obey the order, and explain his delay in doing
so. Van Dorn sent for him to come to his office, and in a
tone of authority demanded of him immediate compliance,
saying, “Why have you not turned in those captured
horses?” Forrest replied defiantly, “Because I haven't got
'em.” Van Dorn said, “That statement differs from your
written report, sir.” Forrest, white with rage, said,
“General Van Dorn, the time will come when your rank will
not protect you, and you shall account to me for this
outrage!” Van Dorn, with his blue eyes blazing, retorted,
“General Forrest, my rank shall never protect me from any
man who feels aggrieved by me, and I await your pleasure
now, sir.” Forrest slowly passed his hand over his face;
then he said: “General Van Dorn, I think there are Yankees
enough for you and me to fight without our fighting each
other. I am sorry for what I said, and respectfully ask your
pardon.” Van Dorn replied: “General Forrest, I am glad to
hear you speak so. No man can ever doubt your readiness
to fight any man or any thing, but while under my
command you must obey my orders, and I
have important orders for you to execute at once.” He
then ordered him to pursue the raiding party of Colonel
Straight, which had just passed down into Alabama.

This was the last interview between these two
celebrated men, alike in their wonderful courage and
energy, while very unlike in their persons. Forrest, with his
powerful frame, high cheek-bones, light gray eyes, and
straight black hair, was in physical powers superior to all
men. He had probably slain more men in battle with his
own hand than any man living. Van Dorn, with his light
graceful figure, florid face, light waving hair, and bright
blue eyes, seemed formed for love and war. Not over five
feet six in stature, he would have encountered Forrest or
any other man. I believe they were two of the bravest men
living who stood face to face that morning. They never
met again. When Forrest returned from his splendid
pursuit and capture of Straight's command, Van Dorn had
fallen a victim of private vengeance.

When Forrest, with about twelve hundred men, set out
in pursuit of Straight, he was more than a day behind him.
Straight had several hundred more men in the saddle than
Forrest, and, being far in advance, could replace a broken-down
horse by a fresh one from the farms through which
his route lay, while Forrest, when he lost a horse, lost a
soldier too; for no good horses were left for him. After a
hot pursuit of five days and nights, during which he had
lost two-thirds of his forces from broken-down horses, he
overhauled his enemy and brought him to a parley. This
conference took place in sight of a cut-off in the mountain
road, Captain Morton and his horse artillery, which had
been so long with Forrest, passing in sight along the road
till they came to the cut-off, into which they would turn,
re-entering the road out of view, so that it seemed that a
continuous stream of artillery was passing by. Forrest
had so arranged that he stood with his back to the guns,
while Straight was facing them.

Forrest, in his characteristic way, described the scene
to me. He said: “I seen him all the time we was talking
looking over my shoulder and counting the guns.
Presently he said, ‘Name of God! How many guns have
you got? There's fifteen I've counted already!’ Turning
my head that way, I said, ‘I reckon that's all that has kept
up.’ Then he said, ‘I won't surrender till you tell me how
many men you've got.’ I said, ‘I've got enough to whip
you out of your boots.’ To which he said, ‘I won't
surrender.’ I turned to my bugler and said, ‘Sound to
mount!’ Then he cried out, ‘I'll surrender!’ I told him, ‘Stack
your arms right along there, Colonel, and march your men
away down into that hollow.’

“When this was done,” continued Forrest, “I ordered
my men to come forward and take possession of the arms.
When Straight saw they were barely four hundred, he did
rare! demanded to have his arms back and that we should
fight it out. I just laughed at him and patted him on the
shoulder, and said, ‘Ah, Colonel, all is fair in love and war,
you know.’ ”

Forrest learned after the surrender that Straight had
sent off a detachment to destroy our stores and works in
Rome, Georgia, not very distant from where they were,
and immediately caused Straight to send a staff-officer to
recall that detachment, Forrest sending one of his staff
along with him. The recall was in good time, and Rome
was saved.

Hard riding had reduced Forrest's force to four hundred
mounted men. Straight had lost a number in the
collisions which had occurred during the pursuit. I believe
thirteen hundred was the number of prisoners which I
forwarded with their gallant colonel to Richmond. He was
a very daring and able soldier, and soon made his way out
of prison and escaped with a large part of his command.

When Forrest, in fierce pursuit of Straight, had come
near to the bridge over the Estananla, a little girl of
fourteen or fifteen summers appeared in the road before
him and signed to him to halt. She said, “The Yankees
have halted at the bridge, and will fire upon you if you go
within sight.”

“Is there not a ford above here,” asked Forrest, “where
we can cross?”

“Oh, yes! A little more than a mile above is a good ford.”

“Well, can't you guide me to it?”

“Yes, indeed,” she said. “Take me up behind you. I
know the way very well, and will show it to you.”

So she got upon a stump, and sprang up behind him,
and pointed out the route he must take. And so they
pushed on together, that fierce warrior, gentle always with
women, and the bright little girl, excited and glowing with
pride in her noble action and in being of such important
service to the most famous of all of the brave men of that
stirring time.

After going nearly a mile she said, “Now you had
better stop here. For after you pass that timber, they can
see you from the ford; for by this time they may have sent
some soldiers up there, and they will shoot at you if you
pass that point.”

So Forrest dismounted, and, accompanied by several
of the officers at the head of the column, advanced to the
timber, and was peering around it, when the enemy
at the ford opened fire upon them. He was amazed and
alarmed when the little girl darted past him, and, spreading
out her little frock, cried, “Get behind me! Get behind me!”
He snatched her up, drew her back to a place of safety,
tenderly and laughingly too, mounted and charged the
enemy, clearing the way for his column in a few minutes.
The little girl was named Emma Sanson. The Legislature of
Alabama gave her six hundred and forty acres of good
land, and she has now been married many years to a
worthy man, and is the mother, we hope, of many sons
worthy of such a mother.

When retreating, Forrest would often ride back some
distance in the rear of his command, in order that he might
reconnoitre the enemy for himself, and form his own
estimates of his progress, etc. On one of these occasions,
while crossing upper Georgia, he was galloping in haste
to overtake his men, when an old woman came out of a
house, and, waving her sunbonnet at him, called out,
“Stop, you miserable coward! Stop and fight!” adding, as
he hurried past, “If Forrest was here, he'd soon stop you!”

In 1863, General Sturgis moved out from Memphis to
occupy the prairie country of Mississippi, that large fertile
region upon the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, where the
great cotton and corn fields lay as yet untracked by the
hoofs of the invader. Forrest fell upon him on the
Tishomingo Creek, with less than twenty five hundred
horse. The army of Sturgis is estimated at about fourteen
thousand men of all arms, and was completely equipped.
His negro troops were in front. Upon these the
Confederates made a deadly charge, which completely
routed them. The survivors fell back in confusion upon
the advancing artillery, which was thrown into disorder,
and the whole command broke up
in utter panic and fled back to Memphis. Sturgis lost all of
his artillery, three batteries, his wagon train, and a great
number of killed and wounded. He reached Memphis
without any command, and ever after held Forrest in
profound respect, and when he would hear of an
expedition going out to capture him would remind the
commander that he once did that.

General Tecumseh Sherman, when in command of the
District of Mississippi, fitted out a formidable expedition
for the capture of Mobile. He moved out from Vicksburg
with twenty-two thousand infantry and artillery. General
Sooy Smith left Memphis with seven or eight thousand
cavalry, intending to join Sherman at Enterprise, on the
Mobile and Ohio Railroad, and thence the combined
forces would move to capture Mobile. General Smith's
cavalry was considered invincible by all the Confederate
forces. Forrest had about two thousand men not far from
West Point. He fell upon Smith near Okolona in the open
prairie, put his command to utter rout, and, like Sturgis,
General Smith reached Memphis without his command.
On this memorable field Colonel Forrest, brother to the
general, fell, bravely leading his men. When General
Forrest saw this, he sprang from his horse, caught his
dead brother in his arms, kissed him tenderly, and with
streaming eyes led his redoubtable bodyguard in a
charge, broke the enemy, and commenced his rout.
Sherman, on hearing of the destruction of Smith's column,
retreated in haste to Vicksburg, pursued by the
Confederates, under Stephen D. Lee, who had recently
defeated Sherman in the battle of Chickasaw Bluff.

Forrest understood well how to patch the lion's with
the fox's skin, and to supplement force with stratagem. In
the winter of 1864, I was commanding the department
of Alabama and Mississippi. Forrest, with about
forty-five hundred horse, was in north Mississippi, and I
charged him with the defence of north Mississippi and
west Tennessee, and, knowing his peculiar sensitiveness
when under control, I wrote to him to this effect: “In
placing you in the command of this district, I wish you to
feel sure I shall not interfere with your exercise of it. I will
be responsible if anything miscarries, and you shall have
full credit for all the successes I am sure you will
accomplish. I cannot spare you a single soldier, but will
promptly respond to your demands for supplies of every
sort.” This gave Forrest great satisfaction. It was the first
time he had been so unhampered by any of his
commanders, and he ever after regarded me with gratitude
for the confidence thus reposed in him, and with respect
for my intelligence in showing that I realized he
understood his business better than I did.

About this time a heavy corps was sent out from
Memphis to occupy the State of Mississippi, under the
command of General A. J. Smith. The rains and the roads
were very heavy, and Smith's army could move but
slowly. Forrest kept a large force close in his front, while
he, with two thousand men, remained quietly about West
Point, getting his horses in good order upon the fine
forage there.

Farragut was bombarding Fort Powell, with the
intention, as I anticipated, of getting an army and fleet
into Mobile Bay. Forrest telegraphed me in cipher to this
effect: “The enemy has twenty-seven thousand men;
has more cavalry than my whole force; I cannot check
him, but with your permission will pass behind him into
Memphis and destroy his stores, and thus compel him to
retreat.” I replied: “Go, but come
back quick. You are all I depend upon for the safety of
north Mississippi.”

It was more than a week before he moved. He then
made a rapid march across to Oxford, and with his whole
force drove back the enemy's advance, and at 4 P. M. Friday,
dashed off to Memphis with two thousand horse and four
guns. Saturday I first knew of his movements from the
telegraph operator at Senatobia in about these words:
“General Forrest just passed here at a gallop, bound for
Memphis.” At dawn, Sunday, came this: “Heavy cannon-firing
about Memphis.” He had marched ninety-four miles
in thirty-six hours. Three rivers were out of their banks.
He tore down houses and fences near by and bridged
them and crossed his guns safely over. At crack of day,
Sunday, he dashed into Memphis, and occupied the city.
The commanding general fled in his night clothes from his
bed, leaving his uniform, sword, etc., to the Confederates.
The garrison of infantry threw themselves into the Irving
Block, a strong building, from which they could not be
dislodged without loss of many men. Forrest's object was
fully accomplished by destroying stores and by
spreading panic throughout the city, which was soon
communicated by telegrams and couriers to the whole
department and army of General A. J. Smith, who, on
hearing that Forrest had occupied Memphis, threw up his
hands, crying, “We are gone up!” and at once retreated
out of Mississippi. Forrest drew his men out of the place,
and by 4 P. M. was ready to go back to his own country.

In telling me of this, he said that a fine-looking
staff-officer came to him, requesting the restoration of his
general's uniform, with the assurance that its return would
be acknowledged by a present of a bolt of the finest gray
cloth to be found in Memphis. The major,
whom Forrest described as a very “sassy fellow,” said,
“General W. desired me to say he will catch you before you
get beck.” “You may tell the general from me,” rejoined
Forrest, “that I am going back by the same road I came by,
and if we meet, I promise to whip him out of his
boots.” - “When I told him that,” continued Forrest, “I
allowed he would not believe me, and would send all of
his forces to intercept me on the other road; but after the
major had gone off with this message, I began to think he
might believe me and attack me on my same homeward
road, and I got scared, and ran back as fast as I came.”
The Federal general did as Forrest hoped he would,
disbelieved him, and made all of his arrangements to catch
him where he wasn't. Thus again he had saved the State of
Mississippi, and this time by his finesse and energy alone.

When I wrote him my acknowledgment of this great
service, I told him he should come down to Mobile and
take a few days' rest, and asked him to send me one of his
brigades; for I thought that the enemy on hearing, as he
surely would, that Forrest and his command were in
Mobile, would delay the attack then under consideration.
My wife wished to entertain him, and gave him a dinner,
inviting some lady friends who were desirous of meeting
this great hero. His natural deference to the sex gave them
all much pleasure. He was always very courteous to
women, and in their presence was very bright and
entertaining. He had for women that manly courtesy and
respect that marks the truly brave man. Under all
circumstances he was their defender and protector from
every sort of wrong. His wife was a gentle lady, to whom
he was careful in his deference.

The enjoyment of our dinner was enhanced by young
Colonel Aleck Chalmers, one of Forrest's regimental
commanders. He was a handsome young fellow, as gallant
as he looked, and full of humor. He described for our great
amusement the descent of his command upon the Gayoso
House at Memphis. At dawn of the morning, they rode
right into the great hall of the office, dismounted there,
and clattered up the broad stairway to the corridors
above, where they found the first-class boarders, officers
and their families. He said: “We went along the hall
knocking at the doors with our sabres or pistol-butts. The
doors would fly open and the occupants of the beds
come forth accoutred as they were. Sometimes it would be
a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes both, all in
appropriate costume. One beautiful young lady sprang
from her bed, threw her arms around my neck, and begged
‘For God's sake, sir, don't kill me!’ ‘Not for worlds,
madam,’ said I, returning tenderly her embrace.” Which he
illustrated with the proper gestures. He was a fine young
fellow, and survived the war, to die after of the swamp
fever of the country.

General Frank Armstrong was much with Forrest, and
was an able cavalry commander - one of the very ablest
in the Confederate service. He says Forrest was never
disconcerted by any event in battle. On one occasion
Forrest, with Armstrong's and Starnes' brigades, was
operating in Tennessee against Gordon Granger's
command. Armstrong was in front, with his skirmishers
pressing Granger's skirmish line, when two couriers came
galloping from the rear, yelling at the tops of their voices,
“General Forrest! General Stanley has cut in behind you,
has attacked Starnes' brigade, has captured the rear-guard
battery, and is right in Armstrong's rear!” Forrest
immediately shouted so that all could hear him, “You say
he is in
Armstrong's rear, do you? Damn him! That's just where I
have been trying to get him all day, and I'll be in his rear
directly. Face your line of battle about! Armstrong, push
your skirmishers forward - crowd 'em both ways! I'm
going to Starnes. You'll hear from me in about five
minutes!”

Off he dashed with his bodyguard, and in a few
minutes loud cheering was heard. He recaptured the
battery, recovered all of the prisoners lost by Starnes, and
captured a large number of the enemy, driving his forces
back. To this day Armstrong's men believe Forrest had
laid a trap for the Federals, into which they fell; whereas
Forrest was as near frightened as he could be in battle,
and Armstrong believed “they were all gone up.”

Forrest knew nothing about tactics - could not drill a
company. When first ordered to have his brigade ready
for review, he was quite ignorant, but Armstrong told him
what commands to give, and what to do with himself. He
had an excellent memory, - remembered everything
exactly, - and was so pleased with his success that he
often afterwards had reviews.

I once asked him about the charge so often preferred
against him of the murder of his prisoners at Fort Pillow.
He said the negroes brought it all upon themselves; that
after the white flag had been raised, and while it was
flying, they continued to shoot his men, who, much
infuriated, shot the negroes; that he stopped it as soon as
he could, but not before many had been shot. It created a
great terror of him ever after among the negro troops. He
knew this and, as in the case of the Dutch colonel, he
used it as a caution against resistance, and an incentive to
prompt surrender when dealing with the commanders of
negro troops.

Sometimes, on the eve of a battle, convalescents and
released prisoners would join him and he would say, “I have no
arms for you yet, but fall in here behind, and you shall have
plenty of good Yankee arms presently.” He told me he had
twenty-eight horses shot under him. He was shot only three
times, which is quite remarkable when we remember how many
battles he fought, and how continually he exposed himself.

In his last fight at Selma, he was in the telegraph office with
General Dan Adams, when a little boy came running in and said,
“The Yankees are coming!” They ran to their horses, which
were tied to the fence. The enemy, led by a big yellow-haired
Dutchman, were close upon them. Forrest said: “Dan Adams
was on a smart horse and got off. The big Dutchman closed
upon me, and had a smarter horse than mine, and he kept
cutting me over the head and arms with his sword, which wasn't
sharp, but it made me mighty mad, and I kept dodging it, for my
pistol got hitched, and I could not get it out till he had hit me
several times. When I did draw it, I dropped my reins, caught
him by his long hair, and fired two loads right into him!”

One evening we were sitting together in the veranda of my
headquarters at Meridian, when his bodyguard came by on their
way to water. I said, “General, that is a fine troop of men and
horses.” “Yes, it is; and that captain is the eighth captain who
has commanded it. The other seven have all been killed in battle!”
Such was the influence of his success and fame, that there
were always daring applicants for vacancies in Forrest's
bodyguard.

CHAPTER XVIII

Forrest's Criticism of the Battle of Chickamauga - He retires to
his Plantation after the War, broken in Health, Fortune, and Spirit -
Pronounced the Greatest Soldier of this Generation - Anecdotes of
General Dick Taylor - His Ability as a Soldier and his Wit as a
Talker - His Opinion of West Point

GENERAL FORREST continually grew in capacity, and of
all his great illustrations of his power in war he
was never greater than when he covered the retreat
of Hood's army, after Schofield had so terribly repulsed
it at Franklin, and, with Thomas, had routed it at
Nashville a few days later, and now
hung upon its rear and pressed it to the very brink of the
Tennessee River. Hood, in his sore calamity, gave charge of his
rear guard to Forrest and General Walthall. Forrest had about
two thousand horse, and Walthall, in command of the infantry,
was allowed to select eight brigades, numbering only two
hundred rifles each! Walthall, told them of the severe work
before them, and personally inspected each brigade, calling upon
any man who desired to fall out to do so. Not a man of those
sixteen hundred Confederate veterans responded. They were all
volunteers for that desperate service. Forrest was in chief
command, and would have chosen Walthall, from all that army
for his second.

Forrest will always stand as the great exponent of the power
of the mounted riflemen to fight with the revolver
when mounted, and with the rifle on foot. His troops
were not dragoons “who fought indifferently on foot or
horseback,” nor were they cavalry who fought only
mounted and with sabres. Few of his command ever
bore sabres, save some of his officers, who wore them
as a badge of rank. None of Forrest's men could use the sabre.
He himself had no knowledge of its use,
but he would encounter half-a-dozen expert
sabreurs with his revolver.

In the great battle of Chickamauga, Forrest's division fought
upon the right of Bragg's line. They were all dismounted, and did
not see their horses for three days. After the retreat of Rosecrans,
Forrest pursued up to within cannon-shot of Chattanooga. He sent
repeated messages to Bragg, urging him to press on the flying
and disordered army of Rosecrans, and occupy Chattanooga. Had this
been done, there would have been no foundation for the claim that
Chickamauga was a great Federal victory. It was the hardest stand-up
fight ever made by the Confederate and Federal armies of the West.
For two days the battle raged. At the close of the second day, the Federal army was driven from the field in a rout. Thomas alone held his division in hand;
the rest in confusion ran towards Chattanooga. Bragg's whole force numbered forty-six thousand men. When the battle ended, eighteen thousand of them
lay killed and wounded. No army of modern war in the Old World or
the New ever suffered such a loss and won the field. The enemy's losses
were very great, including five thousand prisoners. His own reports show that he began and fought the battle with forces superior to Bragg's.
The reason given by the latter for not following up a victory
so signal was, in Forrest's opinion, not justified by the facts
of the condition of the two armies
when the battle ended by the retreat from the field of
the Federal army. And no one was more competent to judge
of the condition of the two armies at that time than Forrest.
That it was a great opportunity lost by Bragg, a great victory
unimproved, has been generally admitted. That it was a defeat
of the Confederate forces or a great Federal victory, history
can never record.

On the 13th of May, 1865, Forrest's command was paroled. His
farewell address to his men was full of common-sense, and he
himself set an example of entire acquiescence in the new order
of things. Many of his negro slaves were employed as teamsters, etc.,
for his own command. The Federal authorities did not interfere with his
plans, and he took these, now free, with teams sufficient, and moved at
once to his plantations in Mississippi, where he went steadily to work.
The negroes were fond of him, and worked for him as for nobody
else. Some time after the war a turbulent negro came to his house
threatening him. Forrest killed him before he could execute his purpose.
I heard of no more trouble upon his plantation.

I was in Mobile when Admiral Semmes was arrested, and happened
to return to my home in New Orleans upon the steamer with him.
As I stepped upon the gang-plank, Semmes, in charge of an officer and
guard-of-marines, had just passed on board. He said to me, in a loud
voice: “You see, General, they have me in arrest. They are going now
to disregard the paroles of all of us.” The marine officer in charge
was a considerate and gentlemanly man, and said to him: “Admiral, this
is a most unpleasant duty for me to have to perform. I wish to discharge
it with as little annoyance to you as possible, and hope you will
feel free to converse and
move about the boat at your pleasure. You shall be
subject to no unnecessary surveillance.” So the admiral
and I occupied a sofa in the saloon, where we sat
conversing till a late hour. He wore his characteristic
manner of brave composure, while he felt the gravity of
his condition. His only apprehension seemed to be of mob
violence in New York, when his presence there should be
known. He was taken next day to the St. Charles Hotel in
New Orleans, where he was detained several days. His
friends were allowed free interviews with him. General
Dick Taylor, Senator Semmes, Duncan Kenner, and other
eminent friends were in earnest conversation with him; for
the occasion seemed very grave, not only for Semmes, but
for all others who had been prominent on the Southern
side in the war between the States. He agreed with me in
believing that Forrest would be the next Confederate
arrested. The Federal organs already were indicating him
as the most proper object of Federal vengeance.

So next day I went to Memphis and sought Forrest at
once, to tell him about all this and urge him to leave the
country. He was down at his plantation at work. I could
not see him, and sought Colonel Sam Tate, his partner
and chief friend (he was president of the Memphis and
Charleston Railroad), who showed a deep interest in my
story, and said: “Do you sit down at my desk and write to
Forrest what you have told me. I will prepare letters of
credit for him. He must not delay his escape. By the time
your letter is ready, I'll have a trusty messenger to bear
it.”

Accordingly a fine young fellow, a captain of Forrest's
corps, presented himself and took charge of our
dispatches. I left Memphis before I could learn the result,
and did not know of Forrest's action for some
weeks. His reply to our letters was: “This is my country. I
am hard at work upon my plantation, and carefully
observing the obligations of my parole. If the Federal
government does not regard it, they'll be sorry. I shan't go
away.” Some weeks after, having occasion to visit
Memphis, he called upon the Federal commander and
spoke to this effect: “General, I have called to know what
you are going to do about my case. I understand you
have arrested Semmes, and are probably going to arrest
me.” He then repeated the reply he had made to Tate and
me. The general assured him there was no purpose to
trouble him. Tate and other acquaintances of President
Johnson's had no doubt procured from him assurances
that Forrest would not be disturbed. He continued for
several years to work with his accustomed energy. Finally,
in undertaking to make a railroad from Memphis to Selma,
he failed.

My last interview with him was in his office in
Memphis. He looked much aged and broken, and said to
me sadly: “General, I am completely broke up. I am broke
in fortune, broke in health, and broke in spirit.” But when,
a day or two after, some of the men who had “broke” him
called to see him and didn't talk to suit him, he spun round
upon his revolving seat and gave them a piece of his mind
worthy of his most unbroken days.

General John T. Morgan, the able senator from
Alabama, was his close friend, and undertook his claim
against the railroad company. Being in Nashville, Forrest
wrote him to come and see him at the Maxwell House,
where he was ill in bed. I shall give Morgan's account of
that last and most touching interview with the greatest
soldier of this generation. Morgan had put Forrest's case
in such shape that it was only necessary
to have his signature to certain papers to insure the
payment of the large sum involved in the suit. He found
Forrest in bed, ill and much broken. He said: “I am a dying
man. For more than a year I have been a converted man. I
have joined the Presbyterian Church. It was the church of
my dear old mother. She was the best woman I ever knew.
I hope it has made a better man of me. I have led a life of
strife and violence. I now want to die at peace with all
men. My son is a fine young fellow; he will do well. I do
not want to hamper him at the outset of his young life
with litigation. I have sent for you to tell you to drop all
further proceedings in that case. I will not sign the
papers.”

This is the last record we have of this great soldier. He
was born a soldier, as men are born poets, and his whole
warfare was Napoleonic. It has been sometimes said that
if he had been educated as a soldier, he would have been
the greatest general the war produced, as he fought more
battles than any commander of his day, always attacked
the enemy upon his vulnerable point, and was never
attacked. He always defeated, routed, or captured his
enemy, and he continually grew in power to the last, and
was ever greater than his opportunities. I do not believe
that four years' confinement under military surveillance at
West Point would have made him a greater soldier than
he was.

Another man whom I knew well was General Dick
Taylor. About 1856, we travelled together with our families.
Taylor had become a very successful sugar planter, had
married a lovely Creole lady, Miss Bringier, of a
distinguished Louisiana family. I had married Miss Mason
of Virginia, and we were all travelling together on the
Mississippi in the fine steamer Empress.
We were about a week upon the journey, and a more
pleasant one I cannot recall. He was the life of the
company. After this he took an active part in the politics
of the South. He was never an aspirant for office, but was
a power in his personal character. In the Charleston
Convention, Taylor was very able and influential, and on
the outbreak of the war he went at once to the field in
command of a Louisiana regiment. His very interesting
and trenchant book, “Destruction and Reconstruction,”
published only a few days before his death, is one of the
most interesting and brilliant of all the works about the
war, and leaves but little to be said as to the ability and
wit of the author.

During my association with him during the war and
after it, I had many opportunities of enjoying his charming
conversation and pungent wit. Once a very bright and
gay lady asked him if he thought a certain very steady
general was a proper commander of an important post on
the eve of an attack. Taylor replied: “He is the very best I
could entrust that command to. What can you urge
against him?” “Oh, he is so attentive to his wife, I don't
see how he can conduct his official business properly.”
“Madam,” said Taylor, “I can well understand how a man
can be attentive to his own wife and his business at the
same time, but I'll be d----d if a man can be attentive to
another's man's wife and mind his own business.” This
struck home, for she was one of the other men's wives, as
Taylor well knew.

After the little army of Mobile reached Meridian, it
aggregated about forty-five hundred veteran infantry and
twenty field-pieces. I organized it at once into a division
of three brigades, and prepared to march eastward and
join Johnston, then in North Carolina, opposing Sherman.
But soon tidings came of his
capitulation and then of the capture of Mr. Davis, and
General Dick Taylor proceeded to make the best terms
possible with General Canby. They were very liberal and
kindly on Canby's part, who gave free transportation over
the railroads to the Confederates of all of our armies who
were making their weary way back to their unhappy
people. A prominent official of one of those railroads
received permission from Taylor to pass into Mobile on
the business of his company. That city was then
occupied by Canby's big victorious army, and, feeling
himself no longer in danger of Taylor, the rascal
telegraphed to his agent at Meridian to “give no more of
those passes to Confederate prisoners of war.” On
hearing this, Taylor telegraphed Canby, “Please send that
railroad official up here under guard to me.” What was
the horror of the man when a corporal and file of soldiers
took him from his home and bore him up to Taylor, into
whose presence he came with well-grounded fear, for
report said the general had shot men for less crimes than
that. Taylor administered in his fluent style such a
tongue-lashing as only he could utter, and concluded by saying:
“You have often heard how an honest man feels when he
falls among rogues. Hereafter you will be able to tell how
a rogue feels when he falls among honest men; for
General Canby and I will teach you a lesson that will last
you the rest of your miserable life! If I were to serve you
right, sir, I would turn you over to those soldiers whom
you have attempted to wrong, and they would hang you
as high as Haman upon one of these tall pines. Go, and at
once countermand your orders!”

After the war Taylor went to Washington to see
President Johnson regarding his policy towards the
Southern people, and especially toward the Confederate
President, who was his brother-in-law, and to whom he
was tenderly attached. He gives in his “Destruction and
Reconstruction” a characteristic account of his interviews
with Thaddeus Stevens and other extreme Republicans
then prominent in Washington.

About 1875, Taylor went to England, where for some time
he was the guest of the Prince of Wales at Sandringham,
and was received with proper courtesies in the circle of
the prince's friends. He never forgot that he was the son
of a President of the United States, and a general of the
Southern Confederacy, and he was so esteemed. He went
with the prince to the Fishmongers' Annual Banquet.
When some of the company aspersed Virginia for her
failure to meet her obligations under the bonds held by
the English, Taylor, a Virginian by descent and affection,
in his terse and manful way defended her so well that he
was invited to meet the holders of ten millions of Virginia's
bonds in conference. They made a very liberal proposition
in view of the revelation of Virginia's poverty, and
authorized Taylor to bear their offer to the government of
the State. This he did, but it was received with a coldness
that argued no intention on the part of the Legislature of
Virginia to pay what they had borrowed from the British
bankers.

About 1870, Commodore M. F. Maury, feeling his
threescore and ten drawing near, made a tour of visits to
his kindred in the South. He came to see me in New
Orleans, and as soon as it was known that he was there,
many attentions were shown him. There was then living in
New Orleans a very wealthy and kindly Southern
gentleman, who had conceived the hopeless idea of
reconciling the opponents in the war about his dinner-table,
and whenever he gave a dinner he would
invite as many Confederate gentlemen as Federal. He
called to see Commodore Maury, and asked him to meet
some friends at his house at a dinner. At that time, party
spirit ran very high in New Orleans. The vials of wrath of
the dominant Federal party were poured upon the
unhappy people. A man named Flanders had been elected,
by bayonet rule and a rascally ring, mayor of the city, and
a Judge Durell was the Jeffreys of the Federal courts.
When we sat down to the table, we found Durell on one
side of our host, next to him Commodore Maury, then
came General John B. Gordon, and then the writer. Upon
the other side of the table were Mayor Flanders, Judge
Wood, Dick Taylor, and William Hunt. But for Taylor, it
would have been a sad and solemn feast; but from the first
he amused the company, otherwise silent and constrained,
by his witty chaffing of “his friend, Mayor Flanders.”
Presently Flanders said to Commodore Maury,
“Commodore, to what extent, in your opinion, do the
developments of modern science corroborate the
revelations of Divine Writ?” The commodore was an
experienced diner-out and a master of the power of
language and of thought, and went on in his peculiar and
eloquent way to expound the extent of the corroboration,
until he felt that he had occupied the attention of the
dinner-table long enough upon such a subject. Taylor saw
it, and I observed his dark eyes sparkling, as he broke in,
“And, Commodore, if you will excuse me for interrupting,
you remember how Job cried out in his agony, ‘Oh, that I
had mine enemy by a ring’? Well, none of us ever knew
what Job meant, until the developments of modern
political science have taught us the power of a ring.
Everybody now understands that my friend the mayor
here holds this great city by a ring.” This relieved
the commodore and the company, and old Flanders,
throwing back his head and opening wide his great
mouth, laughed with the rest. As we gathered about the
buffet for a chasse of brandy, the commodore said,
“Taylor, when did you and the mayor become such
friends?” “I never saw him until to-night,” was the reply.
It was hard upon our good old host, but it may have been
a lesson to him on “reconstruction dinners,” as his were
wont to be called.

Knowing my opinion of West Point, Taylor, one
evening in New Orleans, delivered himself of his views on
the education of officers for the United States Army as
follows: “Take a boy of sixteen from his mother's
apron-strings, shut him up under constant surveillance for four
years at West Point, send him out to a two-company post
upon the frontier where he does little but play seven-up
and drink whiskey at the cutler's, and by the time he is
forty-five years old he will furnish the most complete
illustration of suppressed mental development of which
human nature is capable, and many such specimens were
made generals on both sides when the war began.”

He once told me of a kindly old English duchess who
was enthusiastic in her expressions of admiration for Mr.
James M. Mason. She said: “Mr. Mason was a dear old
man. I did love Mr. Mason! You may know how I loved
him when I tell you that I even tolerated his eating his
tobacco; and when he was coming to B Castle, I sent and
got a lot of spit-pots, so that he could eat his tobacco all
over the house.”

Taylor's last illness was in the home of General Barlow,
his warm personal friend, who had married one of the
charming daughters of Mr. Peter Townsend, of New York.
He was taken ill there soon after the publication
of his book, and was nursed by his devoted sister, Mrs.
Dandridge, of Winchester, one of the most intellectual and
attractive women who ever presided over the elegant
hospitality of the President's house. In her were blended the
best traits of the gentlewoman of
Virginia and Louisiana.

CHAPTER XIX

Last Day of Service for the Confederacy - Beginning the Journey Home -
Hospitalities on the Way - Condition of the South after the War - Arrival at
Richmond - General Lee's Opinion of the Oath of Allegiance - His Manner
of administering a Rebuke - Other Aspects of his Character illustrated -
Death of Mr. Mason

TO resume my narrative, the final day of our
service for the Confederacy was one of the
deepest gloom to us. The little army of Mobile
had held steadfastly together with the
dignity of men who had risked all from a high motive,
and we stood by each other to the last. My own deep
sadness was cheered by the sympathy of the noble men
who had been my comrades. Gibson's Louisiana brigade
had been especially active and enduring in the defence of
Spanish Fort; Ector's Texans, the Alabamians, and North
Carolinians, and Massenbury's Georgians made up that
steadfast little garrison. They were all around me now,
and the Louisiana band, the only one left in the army,
came to my encampment that evening and gave me their
farewell serenade. The officers of the Louisiana regiments
which had served with me longest came to my tent
in a body and bade me an affectionate good by. The
Federal major who relieved my quartermaster of his
public property declined to receive my headquarters
ambulance and team, and graciously urged that I should
keep it for myself. This I declined to do: but when I
found that it would be of great value to my destitute
staff-officers, I approved of their accepting it, and Flowerree,
Dick Holland, and John Mason drove off in it to seek
their fortunes.

On the evening of May 14th, our surrender was
complete. A train loaded with paroled prisoners of war
from Lee's army was going up the road that evening as far
as West Point, and a crate car was added to it for me and
my horse, all the property I then possessed. The
conductor told me it would not go further that night than
West Point, and that I would find hospitable
entertainment for the night in the house of a leading
gentleman of the town - Squire Collins. So just at sunset,
when our destination was reached, I left Roy with the
orderly who had faithfully remained with me thus far to
take care of the horse and to help me, and set out to seek
some shelter for the night.

I readily found the house, quite a handsome one, and
on the veranda were several young gentlemen and a very
handsome young lady in full conversation as I
approached the gate. I was ashamed to ask for shelter, and
had passed on, going some eight or ten paces further,
when I heard the gate latch rattle and a familiar voice call
out, “General!” and I wheeled around to meet a fine-looking
young fellow, Captain Collins of Armstead's
brigade. With hands extended, and hearty words of
comfort and welcome, he claimed me as their guest for the
night, introduced me to his very handsome sister (now
Mrs. Dr. Curry of New York City), and made me at home at
once; and never was generous hospitality more welcome.
There was a sumptuous supper with all the belongings of
a well-appointed table, an elegant bedroom, and a
breakfast appropriate to such an establishment, and,
above all, the sympathetic
care of those charming people. It was the one green
spot in all of that desolate time.

With many warm feelings we parted next morning, and I
got again into my crate with Roy, and in an hour had
reached Okolona, where I found one of our servants
awaiting to conduct me to Mr. Clarke's residence, that kind
friend having already sent for my family to stay with him
until arrangements might be made for our future. As I
mounted Roy, I raised my hat to the Confederates of Lee's
army who filled the train, and they silently returned my
farewell, showing deep sympathy and respect as I turned
away. Our stay with Mr. Clarke lasted about two weeks. He
was goodness itself. He sold Roy for $200 in greenbacks, the
first I had ever seen. Roy was a noble chestnut sorrel of
great power; he had cost $700 in gold, and was a present
to me from an old friend, General Cabell. Mr. Clarke said:
“Now, General Maury, I have no money at all, but there's
near a thousand bales of cotton in my gin-house, and you
just say how many you will accept to take you home and
keep you till you find something to do; for you ain't going
to be kept down long, and I will give you a certificate to my
Mobile correspondent that you have that many bales in
my hands and he will give you the money on it.”

Of course our objective point was our home in Virginia.
My father-in-law's home had escaped the general ruin and
desolation, thanks to Burnside's kind heart, and all of his
children and grandchildren were soon together there. My
parole carried us meanwhile to New Orleans, where my
good friend, Major Charles L. C. Dupuy, of my staff, met
us, and also my kinsman, Mr. Rutson Maury, at whose
house we were entertained. He had received instructions
from his uncle, Mr. Rutson
Maury, of New York, to supply us with everything we
might require. Commodore Maury, who was in London,
had already sent me a generous check, when a
noble-hearted Southern woman came to me and put into my
hand ten gold eagles, but I would not take her little store,
being already amply provided for by so many kind friends.
Ten old friends and comrades offered me money. Some of
these were personal strangers to me, but remembered
some little kindness shown them in the days of my power.
General Dick Taylor was one of these, and with him came
Mr. Payne, the close friend of Mr. Davis. Mr. Richard
Owen, of Mobile, insisted that my wife should share a
little store of gold he had saved for an emergency, and the
of Vasser, of Aberdeen, who were much attached to her,
contributed each a bale of cotton apiece, nine bales in all,
worth then eighty cents a pound, and sent it to their
commission-merchant to be sold for us; but we had
already sailed, well supplied, and it was not until five or six
years afterwards that I heard of this generous act.

Thank God, I can never arraign mankind for want of
generosity, and it is with pride and gratitude that I record
the hospitality and kindness which met me and mine on
every hand throughout the war and at its close. It was not
my personality which called it forth, but it was the
spontaneous outcome of the spirit which pervaded the
whole South in all that sorrowful time, and which
distinguishes it even unto this day. Not even the cruel
vicissitudes of that bitter conflict could chill the
sympathetic hearts and close the beneficent hands of our
dear Southern people. Brave men and tender women are
these who in the past have nobly borne their part, and
whose names will be written with the saints, for of them it
may be truly said “that they loved their fellow-men.”

I learned that the steamship Constitution would sail from
New Orleans in a few days, and the quartermaster ordered
transportation for us as far as New York upon her. There
were a number of Federal officers who were passengers on
her as well, and Captain Mehaffy, of the First United
States Infantry, was the commander of the guard and of all
on board. He showed marked consideration and courtesy
to all of us who were his prisoners; insisted that I and my
family should have first choice of seats at the table and
also of the staterooms, and when he overheard a Federal
chaplain on board talking unpleasantly about the war to
one of my staff-officers, he cautioned him that if he again
transgressed propriety in that way he would lock him up in
his stateroom. The old captain of the ship imbibed
Mehaffy's generous spirit and, finding that we were all
Virginians, he took the responsibility of changing the
ship's destination to Old Point Comfort, and landed us
there instead of at New York. On parting, I formally
thanked him and Captain Mehaffy for their considerate
kindness in behalf of myself and my officers. Several times
afterwards I met the latter gentleman and introduced him to
friends in New Orleans, who were desirous of showing him
courtesies. Mehaffy told me he had lived in Norfolk before
the war, where his father owned a large foundry, and
where he had learned to like Virginians.

On arriving at Richmond, I called to pay my respects to
General Lee, then living in the house in Franklin Street, in
which we afterwards established the Westmoreland Club.
Captain William Lewis Maury, commander of the
Confederate cruiser Georgia, went with me. I gave the
general a written statement of my defence of Mobile, he
having written to me with regard to it, and I felt it was
proper to make my last report to him. At
the same time I told him that a few days before leaving
New Orleans, whither thousands of young Confederate
soldiers had flocked, seeking employment, a Federal major
on a street-car had said to me: “I understand that these
young men won't take the oath of allegiance to the United
States. They can't find employment very easily until they
do, and may get into trouble. I think their generals should
set them an example and encourage them at once to take
the oath and go to work.” He had no idea that he was
talking to a Confederate, for I had laid away all evidence of
my recent rank and calling. When the major left the car, I
continued in it until I reached General Beauregard, to
whom, as also to General Taylor, I repeated the remark.
They both earnestly agreed with his view, and told me
they would at once set an example to their people. When I
had finished, General Lee said: “I am very glad you did
that. It is what we must all do, and what I have already
done.” I said, “I will follow your example.”

General Lee had a quiet way of giving admonition
peculiarly his own. It was very effective sometimes,
although he rarely censured any one. One day he had
established his headquarters in the large country
residence of a gentleman who had placed it at his service.
A distinguished commander arrived with his corps and,
accompanied by his aide-de-camp, reported to General
Lee, who told him to bring the latter with him to the house,
and to direct the rest of the staff to encamp on the lawn
with his own staff. Soon after, dinner was served,
consisting of bacon, and greens, and corn-bread, to which
was added a slice of fine roast beef sent to General Lee by
a good lady of the neighborhood, on which the general
hoped to mend his fare. The three sat
down to dinner, and General Lee inquired of his guest,
“General, what may I offer you?” ”Some of the bacon and
greens, thank you.” Then came the aid's turn. “Captain
Smith, what will you have?” “Beef, if you please,
General.” General Lee suavely transferred the slice of beef
to the young man, who calmly ate it up.

More than a year afterward General Lee arrived at the
headquarters of the commander who had been his guest
upon this occasion. When dinner was served, there
happened to be a fine roast upon the table, and the
aforementioned young beef-eater was present. When his
host inquired of General Lee what he would have, the
latter looked at the unfortunate aide-de-camp, and smiling
kindly replied, “I will thank you for a piece of that beef, if
Captain Smith does not want all of it.” He never showed
temper in his rebukes, but they were all the more effective.
On this occasion, he was as tender to the lad as if
admonishing a son.

When General Lee did express displeasure, his method
of administering a rebuke was usually salutary. During the
fighting around Richmond, one of his officers, who had
been placed in charge of certain lines, was frequently
conspicuous by his absence. This was especially
noticeable whenever there was heavy firing about his
post of duty. His staff were much mortified and disgusted
by the conduct of their chief, especially as they were
aroused night after night just after they had fallen asleep,
worn out with the hard service of the day, to receive
couriers from their superior, comfortably housed in the
city, demanding reports of the day's events. They had no
idea that General Lee had observed all this, and were
therefore surprised and delighted when one morning, as
the recreant appeared, General Lee accosted him with
intense sarcasm. “Good morning,
General Blank. Are you not afraid to trust yourself so far
from the city, and to come where all this firing and danger
is?” “Oh! General, I am somewhere upon the lines every
day.” “Indeed? I am very glad to learn it, sir. Good
morning, General Blank!” And he turned from him with a
scorn as withering as his words.

When one of his commanders, from want of
promptness, permitted a corps to escape, General Lee was
very indignant, and said to him: “General, I have
sometimes to admonish General Stuart or General Gordon
against being too fast. I shall never have occasion to find
that fault with you.”

A warm friendship existed between General Lee and a
very gallant and handsome young officer, who was
married to a lovely Virginia girl on the very night of the
conflagration of Richmond. He did not see his old
commander for some years after the war. When they did
meet, General Lee greeted him with warm affection, and
said, “How many children have you?” “Just four. - “Are
they girls or boys?” “All girls.” - “Well,” said the
general, “I love and revere and admire women, as you
know, but do you go home and tell your wife she has
done enough for the female line. I hope she will now go
on and have four boys to fight for their restored country
in the next war.” The gallant young colonel and his dutiful
wife faithfully executed their general's commands, and
now four lovely daughters and four sturdy sons solace
the evening of their days.

Lee was very averse to office work. Colonel Walter
Taylor, who was his adjutant throughout his great career,
found it difficult to secure his attention to the
accumulating reports of the army. One day he took the
general a bundle of documents, reports, etc., for his
examination. After going over a few of them, Lee, with an
expression of impatience, tossed the rest aside,
whereupon Taylor, whose own patience was exhausted,
gathered them up and was about to retire, when General
Lee said, in a gentle, repentant tone, “Stop, Colonel!
When I lose my temper, I do not think you should let that
make you angry,” and forthwith addressed himself to the
task before him, which he completed thoroughly and
carefully.

On one occasion his opinion upon Sherman's raid
through Georgia was invited. “I have never understood,”
he said, “why General Sherman has been so much
commended for that march, when the only question
before him to decide was whether he could feed his army
by consuming all the people had to eat.”

General Lee was very fond of Stuart, who was also a
great favorite with the young ladies of the valley. Shortly
before the battle of Brandy Station, Lee reviewed his
cavalry corps. The young ladies of Culpepper had
decorated Stuart's horse with flowers, placing a wreath
around his charger's neck. When he had saluted, and
rode up to take his place beside General Lee, the latter
remarked: “Take care, General Stuart! That is the way
General Pope's horse was adorned when he went to the
battle of Manassas.”

Lee rarely drank any liquor. One day General John G.
Walker, a very able officer, reported to him with regard to
some service he had performed. He was very tired, and
could not refrain from glancing toward a very inviting
looking bottle which was very suggestive of something
comforting. The general observed it, and said: “You look
fatigued. Take a drink. It will do you good.” Walker
cheerfully acquiesced, and taking a bottle, poured out a
tumbler of cold buttermilk, the general smilingly enjoying
his little sell the while.

The remarkable proclamation of amnesty promulgated
by President Johnson required us to respond to fifteen
separate disqualifications for citizenship and
trustworthiness. My application was to the effect that in
begging for pardon I confessed that I was a graduate of
the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a
captain in the adjutant-general's department of the United
States Army; and finally I was to state whether I was the
possessor of $20,000! After informing His Excellency of my
guilt in regard to the first two clauses, I stated, in order to
thoroughly clear my skirts of the third, that I was the
possessor of nothing save the ragged Confederate
uniform in which I stood. I never heard from President
Johnson.

About this time I received a letter from Admiral
Buchanan, telling me he had not yet asked pardon
because he could not bring himself to express regret for
anything he had done. I showed the letter to General Joe
Johnston, who said, in his terse way: “You don't have to
express any regret. I have asked pardon and have
expressed no regret. Oh, yes, I did, too. I requested that
His Excellency would grant me a pardon, and expressed
regret that I could offer him no reason why he should.”

After this I set out to follow my family, who had
preceded me to Mr. Mason's home. The railroad ran only
as far as Hamilton's Crossing, the track having been torn
up beyond that point, and not yet replaced. The whole
country had been wasted by war, and the condition of the
people was fearful. The poverty-stricken Confederate
soldiers returning to their ruined homes found Federal
garrisons in every county seat, sometimes white and
sometimes negroes. All of our good men were destitute,
and there were but few who were not cast down in heart
and spirit.

A stage-coach awaited the passengers for
Fredericksburg at Hamilton's Crossing, and into it I
climbed with a Federal major and his wife, on the arrival of
the train from Richmond. It had been raining, and the
roads were very heavy. After a while the stage-agent
came to the door, followed by a respectable looking negro
woman, and said, hesitatingly, “Can't this woman have a
seat in there? It's a long and very muddy walk to town.”
“No, indeed,” said Mrs. Major. “No nigger-woman shall
sit by me.” “I will be d----d if she shall sit by me,” said the
manly major. “Come and sit in here by me, old woman,”
said I. “I've been riding by such as you for nearly forty
years, and it is too late for me to put on airs now.” And
this little difference being amicably adjusted, we
proceeded on our way.

I went at once to Mr. Mason's home, where I found all
the family assembled. Many of the negroes had left, but a
number of the field-hands remained and were at work,
making and gathering the crops of wheat and corn. One
day, while Mr. Mason was busy superintending the
working of his wheat machine, his arm was caught and
drawn into the machinery and dreadfully crushed. He
realized his own condition from the first, and said:
“I have been faithful to my wife and faithful to my friends.
Whether I have been faithful to my God, a few hours must
now determine.” He asked me to read Gray's “Elegy” to
him, which I did. It was a trying task. All of us children
and grandchildren gathered about him until his death,
which took place thirty-six hours after the accident. His
presence and example were sorely missed, not only by
those of his own household, but also by the large circle of
friends and associates to whom he was ever an exponent
of much that most adorns a man.

CHAPTER XX

The Classical and Mathematical Academy of Fredericksburg established - Accepts a Business Offer in New Orleans - Engages in the
Manufacture of Resin and Turpentine - Disastrous Results of this
Enterprise - Preventing a Duel - Preservation of Southern War
Records - Organization of the National Guard - Recollections of
Senator M. C. Butler

IT was decided by my friends and by me that,
as there was no school of standing in that war-swept
region, it was fitting I should establish one. It was known
that I was an A. B. of the University of Virginia, and a graduate
of West Point, where I had also been for four years an
instructor. Encouraged by the recollection of these past
achievements in the field of knowledge, I determined to establish
in Fredericksburg a Classical and Mathematical Academy of a
high grade. As soon as the announcement was made, pupils
came to secure admission, not because they knew anything
about my attainments, but because I was a Confederate
general, and they had the utmost confidence in my
qualifications.

As the engagements multiplied and the time for opening the
academy approached, my own misgivings as to these
qualifications greatly increased. In fact, I felt that I was working
under false pretences, and I determined to practice my abilities
as teacher and guide of youth upon my daughter, modesty
limiting my course of instruction to the elements of arithmetic.
My
efforts were distinguished by such signal failure and lack of
intelligence on my own part, and by such sorrow upon hers, as
convinced me that I must have a partner in the conduct of the
Classical and Mathematical Academy.

There was a very clever teacher, named Buckner, who had
managed the Fredericksburg Academy before the war with that
ability and success to be expected of me. I sought Mr. Buckner
and told him that I found it wiser to have a partner in this
important enterprise, in case I should be sick or wounded; that I
already had forty-five pupils engaged at $50 each per scholastic
year; that I had heard of his capacity as a teacher, and thought it
prudent we should work together; that I was willing to entrust
to him the older and more advanced boys, who were learning the
Latin and Greek and higher mathematics, while I would
undertake the instruction and flagellation of the little a.b. abs.
Buckner was a gentleman and a scholar, and a fine Confederate
soldier as well, and joined at once as junior professor of the
Fredericksburg Classical and Mathematical Academy.

One of the deciding causes of this arrangement of mine and
Buckner's was the arrival at Cleveland of five boys sent to me
from Alabama to be “plebs” of my school. My blood ran cold
when I saw them, but I found an elegant gentlewoman bereft of
her comfortable fortune by the war, who was willing to receive
them into her family on very reasonable terms and to look after
them, which she did for several years very kindly.

At this crisis I received a very lucrative offer of business in
New Orleans. So I transferred to Mr. Buckner my
responsibilities in our mutual institution of learning, and went
to New Orleans to be an express-agent. Having been the
quartermaster in the United States
Corps of Cadets, it was presumed I had peculiar fitness for
all matters appertaining to transportation, etc., so I retired
and Buckner managed the academy until his death, and a
more faithful and accomplished principal it could never
have had. For, since the days of Mr. Thomas Hanson, no
man had won the confidence and love of pupils and
parents, or deserved them more than he.

I always felt satisfied as to my connection with that
excellent institution, for I was strictly honest in it all. I
knew I had been in school from the time I was four years
old until I was twenty-four, and ought to be competent to
teach, but when the five boys arrived from Mobile,
entrusted by confiding friends to my tutelage, I felt the
gravity of the responsibilities, and instituted a rigid course
of self-examination. It was true that for eight or nine years
I had nothing to do but study Latin and Greek, but a
careful private investigation showed that I had not for
many years been able to tell one Greek character from
another, and could not translate a line of a Latin author
without a dictionary. As for mathematics, I had forgotten
the algebraic signs, and after a while I began to doubt if I
could even keep up with the a.b. abs.

I must have been a success as an express-agent, for
soon after entering upon this business, the company
raised my wages to $200 per month, and I sent for my family
to join me in New Orleans. Not many months elapsed
before I ascertained that the company was about to sell
out to an older and richer one, and I was advised to
consider the business of the manufacture of resin and
turpentine. Naval stores were ruling at enormous prices,
many times their ante-war rate, and the whole manufacture
in America had ceased. I took
counsel of as many friends having knowledge of such
things as I could reach, and they unanimously advised me
to go into the business. Pine lands were cheap, the
process was simple, negroes were less averse to that than
any other sort of labor. One generous-hearted gentleman
of Mobile said, “General, I don't think you can fail, and if
you will find a suitable place for the business, I will buy it
for you.” This was Colonel Jack Ingersoll.

Another, Captain John Gillespie, was in charge of an
enormous fire and marine insurance business. He had
never in his life made so much money, and he went on
famously, making commissions of many thousands of
dollars per month for some time. One brilliant stroke of his
electrified his New York company, for he put a whole
shipload of cotton into that company. The managers
posted to Mobile in intense anxiety, but the ship arrived
safely in Liverpool, and they made a fine premium.
However, they begged Gillespie in future not to
monopolize such a risk for them. Gillespie said: “General,
you can't fail in this turpentine business. Go on with it,
and draw on me for your expenses. You took care of me for
four years; I'll take care of you as long as I have a dollar.”
And he did. He is now an eminent lawyer in Kansas City,
Missouri, - Judge John Gillespie, as able as he is honest,
and brave, and generous.

Another true and noble friend was my adjutant-general,
D. W. Flowerree. He had attracted my attention by his
manly and soldierly bearing at Elkhorn. On inquiry, I
learned that he was a Virginian, and a graduate of the
Virginia Military Institute. As soon as I was promoted to a
brigadier, I selected him for my Adjutant-General, and he
stayed with me until the end of the war, and was my dear
friend the last day of his life.

I bought of Mr. Ben Turner, of Alabama, a place he
owned and had profitably worked in Louisiana, in St.
Tammany Parish. There was a comfortable residence
upon it, and all of the apparatus necessary for the
distilling of turpentine, and it was surrounded by great
forests of the best sort of pine. By close attention I
managed to have 70,000 boxes out by the opening of the
season, which there opens two weeks earlier and closes
two weeks later than in regions further north. Adjacent to
my land lay a fine body of timber upon public land, which
Mr. Turner had boxed and worked one season, so that in
all I had 140,000 boxes, half of which would yield a fine white
resin, then selling at fabulous prices.

The prices had tumbled before mine got to market, but I
received $15 per barrel for a small lot, and turpentine also
brought enormous values, selling at several dollars a
gallon. I saw a certain fortune before me, and when an
overture was made to me of the presidency of a railroad,
with a salary of $10,000, I declined it, because I could not
afford to accept it at the cost of giving up such business
prospects. All went well with me for a little while. Every
stilling gave nearly one hundred gallons of spirits and
from fifteen to eighteen barrels of white resin, and I was in
a fair way to reimburse Ingersoll and Gillespie their
advances, when the latter, who had been over-generous
to his friends, came to grief, and I had no capital to pay
my hands or carry on my work.

For the rest of that year things went very badly with
me; we were far from all human sympathy, surrounded by
a very low order of people. The war had developed the
fact that the worst class of our population was to be
found in the vast region of piney woods that sweep
along our seaboard from Carolina to the Sabine. They are
also in the mountains of East Tennessee; the same so
graphically described by Miss Murfree, and who have
until now manifested the most vicious and cruel natures of
any North American. Jones County, Mississippi, is in this
piney woods belt, between Meridian and the lower Pearl
River. Toward the close of the war, it was reported to me
that the people of that county had declared their
independence of the Southern Confederacy. It was said
that a Confederate wagon-train passing through that
section had been captured, and the officer in charge
paroled as any other prisoner of war might have been. So I
forthwith ordered the Fifteenth Confederate Cavalry to
invade this imperium in imperio and reduce these secessionists to
order. Colonel Maury, who was in command of the
expedition, did his work very actively, broke up the cover
of these malcontents, put several families into mourning,
and scattered the military powers into the neighboring
swamps and fastnesses, where his horsemen were unable
to follow up the fugitives. Colonel Lowry, since governor,
of the Third Mississippi, was sent to support Maury, and
completed the work of the mounted men so thoroughly
that the malcontents left the county in great numbers, and
moved down toward the Delta or Pearl River.

It was into this community, where my name, as I
afterwards found too late, was the red flag to the bull, that
I, unwitting of my neighbors, came to seek my fortune.
Threats were soon made against me, and one rascal was
insolent enough to threaten me in my own house. I
invited him out, escorted him through my gate, and
warned him never again to set foot upon my property. On
the next Sunday, about midday, I returned from New
Orleans to find my greatest body of pine
in a general conflagration. Seventy thousand boxes were
burned out, and with difficulty the fences and buildings
were saved. After that I never left my house unarmed.

It was, therefore, with a special relief that I welcomed
the arrival of my kinsman, Jack Maury, from Fort
Delaware. He had refused to take the oath of allegiance to
the Federal government and, with a few other Confederate
officers, was detained in prison until the late summer,
when the United States refused to keep them any longer
and bade them, as Dogberry did, to “go in God's name.”
About this time my wife fell ill, and we were very desolate,
no human being ever coming near us; till one day there
was a step upon the veranda, a tap at the door, and there
stood that grand old gentleman, Dr. Louis Minor, late
fleet-surgeon of the Confederate Navy, as gentle as he was
brave, the Colonel Newcome of our time. He had heard in
New Orleans of my wife's condition, had boarded a sloop
on Lake Pontchartrain, and after a rough experience of
forty-eight hours, reached us. He came like a minister of
mercy, and was with us many days, and his patient was
convalescent before he returned to his own comfortable
home in New Orleans.

It became evident that our whole enterprise in St.
Tammany Parish was a failure. The sum of $10 was the total
balance in hand, and I took $5 and went to New Orleans to
seek my fortune. At the Rigolettes I boarded a sloop
bound across the lake. Her captain and crew of two men
were negroes, and the passenger accommodation
appropriate. My passage money was $2.50, and on the
second day when we landed I walked into the city with
$2.50 in my pocket and went to the office of an old friend,
General Simon Buckner. He told me the office of secretary
of the Southern Hospital
Association had been created the previous night with a
salary of $125 per month, and said, “Will you accept it?”
“Accept it? Of course I will. That's $125 a month more than
my present income.” In a short time it was raised to $200,
and I was able to be reunited with my family.

One bright Sunday morning in the winter of 1871 as we
were returning from church, my friend Colonel M-----
joined us, and after chatting awhile on various topics,
touched my arm and turned away. I followed him, and he
told me that the night before, while drunk, he had slapped
the face of his old friend, Captain L-----, and that he had
been awakened on Sunday morning by Mr. Essling and
Captain Adams, bearing a peremptory challenge; that
Colonel Jack Wharton had agreed to act as his second,
provided I would serve with him. Remembering that the
challenger had a wife and children, and believing that I
could prevent the duel, I consented to serve. The
challenge was peremptory, and we accepted it, Wharton
and I agreeing to fix a “long day,” that time might be
gained for the intervention of friends, and a peaceful
solution reached. We fixed the following Wednesday as
the date, Bay St. Louis as the place, and duelling pistols
as the weapons. We then reported to our principal, to
whom Wharton remarked, “Now you will have time to
brush up your pistol practice.” Raising his head proudly,
Colonel M----- replied, “No, sir, I will not touch a pistol until I
take my place upon the field next Wednesday.” I said,
“I am glad to hear you say so. It is just what I expected of
you.”

In that day, and especially in New Orleans, no man
could refuse to fight a duel under such circumstances as
these, and preserve his self-respect or the confidence
of the community. The principals in this affair were both
Kentuckians and soldiers of high courage. After
accepting the challenge we set ourselves to find some
mutual friend who could act as mediator. By this time the
whole rotunda of the St. Charles Hotel was filled by the
curious and anxious friends of the principals, who had
discovered that a duel was in prospect. Late in the
evening, General Tom Taylor, a friend of both parties,
came to me - may God bless him for it! - and said,
“General, these men ought not to fight.” I replied, “I know
it, but the challenge was peremptory, and no opportunity
for apology was offered.” He disappeared, and, as I
expected, soon returned, saying the seconds on the other
side desired to see us. As we entered the room, Essling
said, “General, I am surprised that you seem so anxious
for a fight.” I said: “No other alternative is left us by the
challenge. I am exceedingly anxious for a peaceable
solution of the matter, if possible.” “Well, ” said Essling,
“if the challenge were withdrawn, do you think we could
reach a solution?” “Yes,” I said; “in that case we
might.” “Well, General, we will suspend the challenge with
the understanding that if we can't satisfactorily adjust
matters, they shall proceed as before arranged.” I retired,
outwardly grave and serious, but with a heart lightened of
its deep anxiety, into a private room, where Wharton and I
wrote an ample apology for the deadly affront offered
Captain L----- by Colonel M----- ; and since that day I have
had nothing to do with duels save to prevent them,
although - to anticipate my narrative a little - the
reckless opponents of Mr. Cleveland have censured him
for appointing me United States Minister to Colombia,
because I have “shot several men in duels.”

On the last occasion of this mendacity, I wrote to
Mr. Cleveland, telling him that for myself I did not care;
that my own people knew my character and history so
well they had elected me a member of the Anti-Duelling
Society of South Carolina. But, as the slander was
published to injure him, I would take any measures to
expose and punish its libellous authors he might advise.
He replied with characteristic kindness, saying, “No one
believes what that paper publishes, and unless it is
reiterated I would not notice it.” An eminent lawyer
informed me I could successfully prosecute for such
slander, but I decided to await further developments,
which never came. Thank heaven, duelling among
gentlemen has become almost unknown. The men who
fought in the great war between the States have no need
of such encounters to prove their courage or protect their
honor.

To return to my story, whence the recollection of this
threatened duel led me to wander, in New Orleans, in 1868, I
determined to set on foot a plan for the systematic
collection and preservation of the Southern archives
relating to the war. General Dick Taylor cordially
encouraged me, and in May of that year I called a meeting
by quiet personal requests of nine or ten gentlemen in the
office of Hewitt and Norton. After conversational
discussion, it was agreed to meet at the same place in one
week from that date. Meantime, each of us agreed to
canvass among his friends and bring them in to help. Next
week forty of us assembled, and the noble and able
Presbyterian divine, Dr. B. M. Palmer, was elected
president, and our work went on for several years, though
without important result.

In 1873, a convention was called at White Sulphur
Springs. It was attended by many able Southern gentlemen,
who evinced the most earnest interest in our work.
President Davis, Admiral Semmes, Governor Letcher, and
General Beauregard took leading parts. The domicile of
the society was moved to Richmond. Colonel Wythe
Mumford was appointed secretary and I chairman of the
Executive Committee. We occupied an office in the
capitol of Virginia, made acknowledgments in the
newspapers for documents received, and arrangements
for their publication.

The Executive Committee included the Honorable R. M.
T. Hunter and several other gentlemen of high character
and ability, and so soon as we began to publish our
records, our membership rapidly increased; so that the
Secretary of War at length sought to procure access to
and the use of our archives. We replied, “Open yours to
us, and ours will be open to you.” This ended the
negotiations. The next Secretary asked access to our
papers with the same result. Then Mr. Hayes obtained the
Presidency, and announced a conciliatory policy towards
the South. He appointed General Marcus Wright, who
had already collected by his own exertions many of our
war papers, to the charge of that business, and sent him
to me to accomplish a free interchange of documents
between the War Records Office and the Southern
Historical Society. To this I cordially assented, and
opened our office with all of its great collection of papers
to the free access of the office in Washington. Since then
the interchange has continued, until now the War
Records Office can publish the authentic facts of both
contestants in the struggle.

Satisfied and proud of our prowess, so wonderfully
exhibited in the war, and with all our interest concentrated
upon the South's financial prosperity, it was no wonder
that for a long time little thought was given to
the development of the military power of the Southern
States. The contest of Tilden and Hayes for the
Presidency caused some of us to apprehend civil war.
During that political struggle and soon after the great
labor riots in Baltimore and Pittsburgh, etc., I called a
meeting in Richmond to consider how we might improve
the militia of the State. We invited the co-operation of all
the States in measures promotive of our military
efficiency, and the matter was promptly taken up in New
York and followed by the first convention and
organization of the National Guard Association of
America.

We succeeded in procuring from Congress a small
increase in the annual appropriation for arming the militia,
but, better than that, we aroused in every State such
interest in this vital subject as has placed on foot the
most efficient national militia in the world. Only a short
time has passed since the great State of Pennsylvania
called out her militia, and in twenty-four hours an army as
large as that with which Scott conquered Mexico was
thrown into a remote part of the State, where it arrested
and crushed out the most dangerous and powerful
organization ever yet in arms against the government. In
setting this movement on foot, I had the active help and
co-operation of Captain Chamberlayne, Colonel Cutshaw,
Colonel Purcell, and other gentlemen of Richmond.

Before bringing my narrative to its end with an account
of my experience and adventures in Colombia, I wish to
pay a tribute to my old friend, Senator M. C. Butler, of
South Carolina. Senator Butler is a descendant of the best
families of the Southern and the Northern States. The
famous Commodores Perry of New England were his
uncles. On his father's side he was of the Butler families of
Virginia and South Carolina. That
noble Senator Butler, Andrew Pickens Butler, compeer of
Calhoun, was his uncle. None who ever enjoyed the
pleasure of his acquaintance here forgot how high a
privilege that was. Judge Butler, R. M. T. Hunter, and
James M. Mason were for years the great triumvirate of
the United States Senate. They lived in the same house,
ate at the same table, and were close friends, warmly
attached and associated in their personal intercourse, and
staunch allies in debate and influence in the Senate in
those days when the true dignity and influence of a
Southern senator were at their highest.

It was once my delightful privilege to pass the
Christmas holidays with Judge Butler and a company of
bright ladies and gentlemen, old and young, in
Hazelwood, that old Virginian home of the Taylors of
Carolina. Young as I was, Judge Butler and I became
close friends at once. We had a dinner party every day,
and every night had its delightful close in a dance at
Gaymont, Port Royal, or Hazelwood. The house, big as it
was, had no vacant beds or empty places at the table, and
we young people greatly enjoyed the old people. I
remember a dinner of twenty or more sets, when we
young men and maidens listened with delight to the witty
and wise conversation sustained by Judge Butler, William
P. Taylor of Hayfield, and John Bernard of Gaymont. We
young folks ceased our merry chat and listened with rapt
attention to the wisdom and wit and charming narratives
and wise discussions of this cultured trio of refined
gentlemen of the old school. In a long experience I can
recall nothing so elegant as was that Christmas week.

Senator M. C. Butler is worthy of his high lineage. He
entered the Confederate Army at the outset of the war
between the States before he was twenty and con
grew in his influence and his distinction. He had
every quality of a great soldier, and far higher, a
nobleness of nature which has made him till now admired
and loved by all sorts of people, by the highest the most.
He has been a senator of the old-time standard of his
gallant little State, and a leader in all that has been
important in the councils of his country. For more than
fifteen years he has been in his high office, and well will it
be for all our people if he will continue in it. It was not
merely by his energy and daring soldiership that Butler
won the confidence and admiration of all good men, but
he has given an example of self-sacrifice which for all time
will be held up for the emulation of future generations.

Butler bore an active part in the famous cavalry battle
of Brandy Station, in which he was seriously wounded
and maimed for life. In the early morning of that fierce
fight, in which more than twenty thousand horsemen
contested the field from dawn till dark of a long day in
June, Butler and young Captain Farley had just come out
of action and were laughing together over some amusing
incident they had both noticed. Side by side in the road,
they were facing in opposite directions, when a cannon-ball
from an unobserved battery came bounding at them.
It struck Butler's leg above the ankle, tore through his
horse, and cut off Farley's leg above the knee. Down they
all went. Butler began to staunch the blood with his
handkerchief, and advised Farley how to do the same.
Captain John Chestnutt, Lieutenant Rhett, and other
officers came running up to Butler's help, but at that
moment he observed that Farley's dying horse was
struggling and seemed likely to crush him. So he told the
officers who had come to his help to “go at once to
Farley. He needs you more than I do.”

This they did, placing Farley in a litter. He asked them to
bring his leg by him in it, and said: “Now, gentlemen, you
have done all for me possible. I shall be dead in an hour.
God bless you for your kindness. I bid you all an
affectionate farewell. Go at once to Butler.” That evening
about five o'clock Butler's leg was dressed in the field
hospital, just as poor Farley breathed his last. Butler had
never seen Captain Farley before that morning, when
Stuart sent orders by him to Butler. Henceforth we shall
not need to go to Sir Philip Sidney for an example of noble
self-sacrifice.

Butler is full of genial humor and ready wit, as of more
sterling qualities of manhood. On one occasion, he was at
a reception in a Western city. A coarse, vulgar doctor
was introduced to him, whose graceful salutation was,
“So you are the fellow that killed all of them niggers in
South Carolina.” With an infinitely humorous expression,
in his mellowest tones, Butler said, “Doctor, I have no
doubt you have killed more men than I have.” The retort
carried the audience, who despised the doctor, and
enjoyed his discomfiture as he slunk away.

This foolish invention of an Edgefield massacre,
published by politicians, who used to ride over us and try
to keep us down, gave Butler another opportunity to
show his mettle. A leading senator, who had announced
that he was an advocate of settling personal difficulties
by the “Code of Honor,” had pressed this charge
against Butler with especial virulence, and led in the effort
made to exclude him from his seat in the Senate. After all
the charges had been thoroughly disproved, and all
honest men were satisfied that Butler had successfully
striven to prevent bloodshed and violence in that
business, this senator failed to acknowledge in any way
that he had done injustice, but soon gave an occasion for
Butler to bring him down from his perch, and received at
the Carolinian's hands such a castigation as he had never
before been subjected to.

Butler married Maria Pickens, the second daughter of
Governor Francis W. Pickens, the first war governor of
South Carolina. In a recent letter Butler says: “No sketch
of my life would be complete which did not mention the
good woman, my wife, who has so much to do with
shaping my career. If I have had any success in life, it is
due more to her and my venerated mother than all else.”

Beside General Butler's name should be written that of
another South Carolina soldier, Colonel Haskell, whose
arm was so terribly shattered that amputation at the
shoulder was necessary. The surgeon was about to
administer chloroform when Haskell said: “Stop, Doctor!
You have very little chloroform since the enemy has
declared it contraband of war. Is it not so?” “Yes,
Colonel.” “Then keep it for some poor soldier who needs
it. I can do without it.”

CHAPTER XXI

Appointed Minister to the United States of Colombia - Panama and its Scenery - An Event in the History of Cartagena - The Journey up the Magdalena
River - Alligator Shooting - By Mules from Honda to Bogotá - The
Country and its People and Agricultural Resources - The Cattle and Horses

ABOUT six years ago, I was appointed United
States Minister to Colombia, and enjoyed
exceptional advantages of observing this interesting
people and their wonderful country. My visits to the
Isthmus impressed me with the great destruction of life
and property which attended the construction of the De
Lesseps canal, and caused me to believe that a work of
such magnitude could not soon be accomplished under
the management then in charge of it.

An exception to the general inefficiency of the
engineering work upon the Isthmus was found in the
Grand Canal, excavated by the American Dredge
Company. For more than twenty miles that company had
made a canal, one hundred yards wide at the brim, and
thirty feet deep, with the slopes of the banks securely
sodded with wire grass; so that, should the scheme of an
Isthmus canal ever again be agitated, the American half of
the work will be found ready for service. I believe that our
interests will be better served by the Nicaraguan than the
Isthmian route, which lies out of the track of our
commerce with the Pacific Coast, as well as of our trade
with China. We have, as yet, very little trade with the
eastern states of South America, but when our
commercial relations shall have assumed their proper
proportions, the Nicaraguan route will serve our needs as
well as that of the Isthmus.

The hospitals upon the hills overlooking Panama
relieve the general evidences of unthrift and incapacity.
All that can comfort the sick, or cheer and enliven them,
has been there assembled. Every chamber looks out upon
the enchanting scenery. The lovely grounds are
beautified by flowers, fruits, and shade trees, and cooled
by the breezes of the great Pacific, which breaks upon the
shore below. Panama and its lovely bay lie before us
there, and the verdant islands which gem it, all lying
within common range of the city and of each other, seem
tempting prizes for any maritime power.

During the past forty years, England and the United
States have endeavored to purchase one or all of them
from Colombia. Mr. Marcy offered $600,000 for one of them,
but the constitution of Colombia forbade the alienation of
any of its territory, nor would the sensitiveness of that
proud people assent to it. The constitution adopted about
six years ago excluded the prohibition of sale of
Colombian territory, and contained a clause permissive of
the alienation of it. But the susceptibilities of the people
were so great that no administration would venture even
to mortgage or lease one of these little islands, which are
strategetic points essential to any power seeking to
control the Isthmus. The Congress soon repealed the
permissive clause of the constitution, and re-enacted the
clause prohibiting the alienation of Colombian territory,
and if ever the United States entertained the idea of
establishing a coaling-station or of erecting fortifications
there, the
opportunity has passed, we fear. Let us hope that when
the treaty of 1846 between New Granada, now Colombia,
shall be revived, proper provision will be made for the
occupation by the United States of such points on or near
the Isthmus as are essential to its defence, which the
United States has pledged herself in that treaty to
maintain.

We made the run from Colon, once Aspinwall, to the
mouth of the Magdalena River, on a fine British steamer,
in about twenty-four hours. She was commanded by
Captain Woodworth, a typical English sailor, master of
his profession, intelligent, kindly, and humorous. He is
widely known in those waters, and is trusted and liked by
all who know him. Among his crew was the original of
Dick Deadeye, whom no man who has seen the opera of
“Pinafore” has ever failed to recognize.

A railway some twenty-five miles long took us up to
Barranquilla, a busy town of about twenty thousand
people. It is the principal port of Colombia. I went from
Barranquilla in another British steamer to Cartagena, to
pay my respects to President Nuñez, who, after his
stormy political life in Bogotá, retired to this his favorite
city. I found him enjoying his dolce far niente in his
beautiful villa, charmingly situated on the beach of the
Caribbean Sea beyond the walls of the city. In stature and
general appearance Nuñez reminded me of General
Mahone. Unlike Mahone, he is a poet, and no soldier. He
asserts that a strong government is essential to the peace
and consequent prosperity of Colombia; that the people
are not educated or intelligent enough to govern
themselves; and that therefore he will govern them, and
meantime educate them, until they shall be capable, as we
of the United States
are, of having a free government. His army is well
equipped and held in strict discipline, and so distributed
as to quickly crush any attempt at revolution. When one
remembers that for a long time civil wars recurring every
three or four years have stopped the progress and wasted
the resources of this rich country, one cannot withhold
approval of Nuñez's policy, so far as it can preserve peace
throughout the country.

About a year after I saw him, he came up to Bogotá,
relieved Vice-President Payan, to whom he had entrusted
the duties of the office, temporarily, of the presidency,
exiled thirty-six of the important leaders of the opposition,
and issued a decree restraining the liberty of the press.
He then retired to his retreat in Cartagena, leaving Payan
again in charge of the government. Nuñez had not long
been gone before Payan recalled the exiles, and repealed
the laws restraining the freedom of the press. Thereupon
Nuñez hastened from Cartagena, and re-enacted
legislation requiring a censorship of the press. He did not
revoke the pardon of the exiles, but he sent Payan into
exile himself, and the latter went away into a distant
province, where he lived in elegant retirement for a year or
so, when he was permitted to go to his own home in
Cauca.

The city of Cartagena is one of the most interesting in
this hemisphere. It was the especial favorite of old Spain
in the day of her pride and power. Its great wealth
attracted the cupidity of the daring buccaneers who for
so many years roamed these seas in Elizabeth's day, and
for a long time after. Hawkins, Morgan, Drake, and others
were the leaders of the pirates of that day. Hawkins was
the pioneer of negro slavery, which so pleased his royal
mistress that she knighted him and gave him a negro's
head for a crest, and until the colony
of Virginia was emancipated from English thrall, great
numbers of negroes were seized in Africa, and sold in
Virginia, and this in disregard of the protests of her
people. Cartagena was the object of the chief desire of the
freebooters of that day, and was often attacked by them.
It was also an especial point of interest to the king of
Spain, who spent $60,000,000 upon its fortifications,
which stand to-day a monument of the wealth and
engineering skill of the old Spaniards.

In 1741, during the war between England and Spain, a
large expeditionary force was fitted out against
Cartagena, and entrusted to the command of Admiral
Vernon. A year or two before Vernon, with a fleet of six
English ships, had made an unexpected descent upon
Porto Bello, capturing it and bearing away great spoils.
Lawrence Washington, eldest brother of our great George
Washington, was a lieutenant under Vernon, for whom he
had so warm an admiration that he named his home in
Virginia Mt. Vernon, after him. This estate after his death
became the property of his brother George.

The expedition of Vernon against Cartagena was
prepared with great ostentation and parade. One hundred
ships and fourteen thousand men sailed and debarked
before the place. Vernon's long and conspicuous
preparations gave due notice of the object of his attack,
and he found the Spaniards had not been idle or
unprepared. In those days, no troops were so good as
they, nor were any officers so proud and skilful; for they
were in constant wars and rarely met defeat. The fighting
was fierce and long. The defenders displayed heroic
valor, and Vernon's laurels, won at Porto Bello, withered
beneath the walls of Cartagena. Disease and Spanish
valor destroyed his army, and after
more than forty days' constant fighting, he re-embarked
his shattered forces, and sailed away, leaving many
trophies in the hands of his enemies. The most curious of
these were the medals, which Vernon, in his vain-glory,
had prepared in England, to be presented to those of his
officers who should distinguish themselves in the capture
of Cartagena. Those medals are now preserved in the
libraries of Bogotá.

The Bay of Cartagena is one of the most beautiful in
the world. In its expanse it is like the Bay of Mobile, but
has greater depth, extending up to the very walls of the
city. The entrance by the Boca Chica is very narrow and
easily defended by the strong forts erected by the
Spaniards, which have more than once turned back the
tide of war. On one of the islands in the bay is the
Lazaretto, where hundreds of lepers are quarantined. No
Father Damien has ever yet found his way to them. They
live and die in their dreadful isolation, in full view of the
shipping of the great city and the people of the busy
world they can never enter more. A canal ninety miles
long, called the Dique, connects Cartagena with the
Magdalena River at Calamar. Steamboats run up this
canal into the river and thence up to Honda, at the base
of the Andes.

The Magdalena is a miniature of the Mississippi. Its
densely timbered banks are only varied by the many
wood-yards, occasional hamlets, and small plantations of
bananas, corn, sugar, cocoa, etc. On the sandbars we saw
many alligators. We counted one hundred and ten on one
bar, and our only amusement during our seven days' run
was shooting them. The sport would be wanton, but that
the creatures are very prolific and dangerous to human
life. The only vulnerable spot is the eye or the point
where the jaw joins the throat. A
ball, even from our Winchesters, could not penetrate any
other part of their armored bodies. When struck
elsewhere, or when startled by the passage of the bullet,
the alligator flounders with great to-do into the river, but
when fatally hit his tail quivers, and he lies still until some
native takes his skin and fat. We never got closer to them
than two hundred yards, and rarely within four hundred.

About twenty-five steamers do the freighting of the
Magdalena. They are like the small stern-wheel boats that
used to ply the Ohio River. They draw two and a half feet,
and as the navigation is very dangerous, they tie up
every night. The trip from Barranquilla to Honda is
usually made in from seven to eight days when the river
is high. The down trip is made in from three to five days.
The boats are reasonably comfortable. Mosquito nets are
sometimes necessary, and one's own mattress, for the
staterooms have only cots, which are bare and very hard.
The price of passage up to Honda is $35. Going back, it is
less.

At Honda we took mules for Bogotá, for which we paid
about $5 each; this includes the arriero or muleteer. These
men are entirely trustworthy. At dawn they catch the
mules, which have been grazing all night, and saddle and
pack them with great dexterity, and move off, on foot, as
soon as they are ready, without waiting for the traveller,
who comes on at his leisure and does not see his
baggage till he has reached the appointed place of halt for
the night. No apprehension need ever be felt as to the
safety of one's luggage. The usual duration of the trip
from Honda to Bogotá is three days. A railway from near
the crest of the mountain runs into Bogotá, about twenty
miles distant, and takes one into the city in an hour and a
half. All along the route up
the mountains, one is enchanted with the grand scenery.
They are verdant from base to summit, and covered with
small farms of bananas, corn, barley, etc., all cultivated by
the hoe, - for no plough can work on their steep
sides, - and along the whole road, which was paved by
the Spaniards, one is never out of sight and sound of the
pack trains passing up and down.

The cries of the muleteers are not unmusical, and cheer
their animals, while they lend life to the road. They also
keep all wild animals away, and serpents, too. I never saw
in all of my hunts and travels one of those dangerous and
tremendous snakes of which such terrible accounts are
told. I know that in some regions they are to be found; for
many gentlemen told me so, and I have seen enormous
skins of constrictors and venomous serpents, as well as
of rattlesnakes, which last are not so large as we have in
Texas or Florida.

There are towns, and hamlets, and homesteads all
along the route, where meat and drink for man and beast
are plentiful and cheap. Hundreds of packs, “cargoes,”
pass daily along the road, a “cargo” weighing 250
pounds; and when I was there the government derived a
great revenue from this freight, about $5 per cargo. The
mules are not the only pack-animals; oxen are often
employed, and men and women bear large burdens up
these mountains. There were many sugar-plantations
along the way, and the sound of the grinding was
pleasant to hear. They use horse-power to work their
mills. On the Rio Negro, where there are many sugar-mills,
they have a water-power which could run all the factories
in Manchester; and though a short ditch would do the
work better, for generations these gentlemen have used
mules.

As we ascended to 4000 or 6000 feet, we came upon
the coffee-plantations. I visited one of over 200,000 trees,
which was in fine condition. It was well equipped with
every appliance of the business, and was in good bearing.
The raising of coffee is the most lucrative business, and
as it is always conducted in a healthy region, well up the
mountain, is very tempting to foreign capital. The trees do
not bear until they are four years old, and during that time
the expenses are heavy, and there is no return. After that,
for ten years or more, the crops recur. Every winter yields
one pound of coffee to each tree, and every summer about
half as much. The trees are planted some four feet apart, or
about 1000 the acre. The cost of clearing and planting a
coffee-plantation is estimated at $100 per acre. Nothing can
be more charming than a fine coffee-plantation. They are
always on the mountain slopes, in the midst of a beautiful
scenery and delightful climate. The trees grow ten feet
high, and their dark, evergreen foliage mantles the entire
surface of the plantation. The proprietors are the grand
señors of the country. On one plantation of 200,000 trees
in full bearing, the residence of the proprietor was a vast,
two-story building, elaborately and thoroughly
constructed by his own laborers, of timber and stone from
his own estate. Wide corridors ran all around every story.
A handsome chapel was in the lower story. The
establishment was completely furnished, yet the manager
told me that the proprietor resided in Bogotá, and spent
about three days annually in this lovely home. The
grounds were beautified by fruits and flowers of the
temperate and tropic zones, and a crystal stream ran
through the place and supplied a large swimming-bath.

Mr. Wheeler, the very able chargé d'affaires of Great
Britain to Colombia, has passed many years in travelling
over that country, and is probably better informed about
its resources and conditions than any other foreign
resident of it. His reports to his government on the
agricultural conditions of the country, and upon its trade
and resources, are full of reliable information on these
subjects. They present a strong array of the natural
advantages of Colombia, and a correspondingly strong
arraignment of the people who possess but do not
develop them. He says the following is a list of the chief
agricultural products of Colombia: Cocoanut palm, cocoa,
date palm, cotton, indigo, rice, yucca, sugarcane, anise,
plantains and bananas, tobacco, olives, maize, aloes,
caoutchouc, coffee, arrocucha, apples, eucalyptus, wheat,
cinchona, cochineal, potatoes, and barley. All of these
can be raised at little cost. Colombia is the home of the
potato. They are raised there in fine quality and in great
abundance. Wheat and corn yield two crops a year, yet
the largest export from the United States to Colombia is of
wheat flour.

Mr. Wheeler states that the total exports from Colombia
amounted, in 1887, to over $14,000,000. Of these, the United
States received a little over $3,000,000. The imports the
same year were $8,719, 297. England's share of this was
$3,611,775, the United States getting only $9737 worth of
goods. The tobacco of Colombia is easily grown and of
excellent quality. There is a cigar factory in Ambulema,
which employs 500 hands, and makes excellent cigars at $1
per hundred. They are preferred by some to those of
Cuba.

The country abounds in fine cattle and good, active
horses. On the plains of Bogotá are the largest cattle I
have ever seen. Mr. Edward Sayers, a gentleman of
English descent, sent me a fine cut of beef from a cow
that netted 800 pounds of fat and 1200 pounds of lean.
In butchering beef, all the flesh is cut from the bone, so
that the viscera, hide, head, and bones made the gross
weight of this animal over 3000 pounds. He had on his
estate a number of cattle of equal size fattened on blue
grass, the seed of which he procured from Kentucky. The
native grasses are excellent.

On a neighboring estate, owned by Mr. Alexander
Urdanata, I saw twenty-five Durham cows milked every
morning. One of them gave six gallons besides what was
left for the calf. But little enterprise has been shown in
improving the breed of cattle or of any other stock, and
Mr. Wheeler's report shows that from 1849 to 1878 the total
number of bulls imported was only thirty, and of cows
only twenty; and more of these were Durhams than of
any other breed.

Mr. Vaughan has on his place of Santuario the only
imported thoroughbred horse I know of. The native
horses are rarely over fifteen hands high, and but few are
of that height. They all pace from their birth, and are
active, enduring, and gentle. The method of breaking
young horses is very cruel, but it is effectual. They are
tamed forever after. There are a few imported coach-horses
in Bogotá, but they are very clumsy, heavy-footed
beasts.

CHAPTER XXII

The City of Bogotá - The Clergy, the Military, and the People - Trade
Relations with the United States - Social Life in Town and Country -
Duck Shooting - Mineral Wealth of the Country - An Exciting Dog-Cart
Drive down the Andes - General Henry Morgan - Return to
the United States

WHEN the Spaniards came to Bogotá, the capital of the
country was a large Indian village. It is now a large city,
its population being estimated at over 80,000. The head of
the Catholic Church in Colombia resides there. The
President and his cabinet are there, and once in two
years Congress assembles there.

There are few cities I know of that are more elegant and
luxurious than Bogotá. Wealthy men from all parts of
Colombia make it their home, and England, France,
Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United States have their
legations there. The city is well built, of adobe and brick,
as well as of stone. There are many houses of two stories,
and some few of three. Within, they have every modern
improvement, - gas, water, electric bells, telephones, etc.
The streets are paved, and the sidewalks are flagged.
When I left, the electric light was replacing gas and
kerosene. The institutions of learning are numerous and
excellent. The chief of these is a Catholic College of the
Priesthood. These young ecclesiastics occasionally
passed my house in columns of twos. I was struck by
their attention to
personal neatness. They were in exact uniform, with
broad hats, long black gowns, and low shoes with
shining buckles, and manifested by their appearance their
belief in the maxim “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

The clergy of Bogotá are men of ability and dignity.
The good Archbishop Paul died just before I left there. He
was a man worthy of the love of all his people. A vast
concourse followed him to his grave, and as the imposing
procession moved along the streets, the people in their
homes wept for him. Around his grave the voice of sect
was silent, and all men mourned the good man gone from
them to his eternal rest.

The medical college at Bogotá is well conducted, and the
graduates are a high class of gentlemen. There are usually
five battalions of troops in the city: one of artillery and four
of infantry. They were well equipped in all respects. Armed
with breech-loading rifles, uniformed in blue coats and
scarlet trousers, with belts well filled with cartridges, they
were always ready for action. Their discipline is exact. I
never saw one of them drunk. Many of them are young
boys not five feet high. In one of the fiercest battles of the
late revolution, these little fellows fought with great
stubbornness, 4000 of them withstanding all day the
assaults of 7000 government troops; and when at sunset a
truce was called and peace was made, 800 dead were buried
on the field, the loss in killed and wounded aggregating
4000 men. The guns of the artillery were light pieces,
mountain howitzers, galling, etc., and were all drawn by the
men. The generals were fine-looking fellows of high social
standing and influence. Their uniforms were gorgeous, and
they were well mounted, but when they moved off at a pace
the dignity of the occasion was lost in the eyes of a
cavalryman trained in our school. There is a military
academy there, organized by Lieutenant Lemley of
the Third United States Artillery.

The people of Bogotá are very kindly and courteous,
and no women I have ever seen surpassed these in the
grace and dignity of their manners or in the purity of their
lives. They are devoted wives, mothers, and Christians. If
Colombia does not increase her population by
immigration, she has a sure dependence in her home
production. One noble matron of Antiochia, who was
married at thirteen, contributed seven daughters and
thirty sons to the population of her State. They were all
living when I last saw them.

It is quite remarkable that a country so surpassingly
rich should continue in this age so secluded and
undeveloped. With a sea-coast of vast extent on her
eastern and western shores, she has harbors and bays of
absolute safety, and the healthfulness of her seaports is
at least equal to our own. Yet we have no trade there, and
except the Pacific Mail Line, we have no American
steamers plying thither. The English, German, and French
do most of the transportation. Mr. Wheeler states that
thirty-two steamers visit Colombia every month, of which
fifteen are British and only three American.

The social life of Bogotá is very attractive; the dinners
and balls are sumptuous and elegant. At one of the latter I
saw several hundred ladies and gentlemen, and many of
the dresses were from Worth. The races are always
largely attended by the ladies. A military band of music is
on the ground, and a battalion of troops lines both sides
of the track for half the quarter stretch, to prevent
accident. There were sixty coaches occupied by families,
which were all made to keep in line and at a safe distance
from the track. Several
hundred gentlemen, well mounted, galloped at pleasure
about the field; but the racing was very poor, both
horses and riders being untrained.

We had good shooting in Colombia. On one occasion I
was invited to the hospitable hacienda of Mr. Urdanata, to
shoot ducks. His house is one of the finest on the plain.
He and his wife speak English perfectly, as do many of
the well-bred Colombians. No long before our visit, they
had entertained over one hundred guests for three days in
their home. There were several handsome parlors, and the
usual sitting-roof contained a small library. In this room I
counted twenty-five guns of various sorts. My host
bought his shot-guns in England, and his rifles in the
United States. In the presses of that room were stores of
ammunition sufficient to blow up the whole
establishment. Urdanata's especial gun weighs about
fifteen pounds and is calibre No. 8. The charge is six
drachms of powder and three ounces of shot, and it
sounds over the water like a small cannon. I repeatedly
saw him kill a duck at two hundred yards' distance. While
we were with him, we usually bagged one hundred and
twenty-five ducks daily, and he always got more than all
the rest of the party together. On a hunt made after we left
him, he told me he bagged seven hundred ducks in six
days. I thought our Colt guns shot much better than his
Lancasters. On the water it was easy to compare the
ranges.

My intercourse with the government was always of the
most agreeable character. President Holguin is a
gentleman of most affable and attractive manner, and a
man of eloquence and ability. His appearance is very
pleasing and graceful, especially on horseback. In my
long intercourse with him and the Minister of Foreign
Relations, Dr. Restrepo, I rarely proposed any measure of
common interest to the United States and Colombia which
was not acceded to, unless the claim was for money,
when I was invariably postponed or denied; for they have
no more money than they need themselves.

The emerald mines near Bogotá are the finest and
probably the only emerald mines now worked in the
world. Not far from them is a vast salt mine. Both of these
enterprises are the property of the government, and yield
a good revenue. There are also large iron and coal mines
near by, and a foundry employing six hundred hands.
Gold mines are numerous in many parts of the country,
and most of these are owned by English capitalists. The
aggregate yield of gold is only $6,000,000 annually. There
are also silver, copper, and lead; and lately quicksilver
has been discovered. Very unwisely, the government
exacts a heavy tax on all mining machinery brought into
the country.

The important question now is, Why have we not trade
with this most beautiful and fruitful of all the regions of
the earth? and what can be done to promote our
commercial relations? The Spanish language, with which
for many reasons we should be familiar, is rarely taught in
our schools. There is not a school that I know of south of
Mason and Dixon's line in which Spanish is taught. Most
of us have spent eight or ten years of our boyhood in
learning Latin and Greek, and to what end?

This Colombian trade must be worked up by
commercial travellers who can speak Spanish well.
American merchants should have sample-rooms in
Bogotá and other large towns. Taxes should be adjusted
to encourage commercial intercourse between the
countries. The packing of goods for the Colombian trade
is peculiar.
Flour for that trade is sent out in bags coated inside with
a paste of their own contents. Yorkshire hams are
protected by water-tight and air-tight cloths, and keep for
a long time sweet and good. Dress-patterns and
dry-goods must be of a certain length, no more and no
less, and every pack should weigh one hundred and
twenty-five pounds, or half a cargo. There are many other
practical details essential to this trade, as the commercial
traveller will learn. A railroad from the Magdalena to the
Plain of Bogotá is of vast importance, and will pay well.
The mail facilities are few and very insufficient. Sixty days
are needed to send a letter and receive an answer, and a
large part of the business of the Legation is crowded into
one or two days. Being of an active temperament, I
occupied much of my leisure time in excursions
throughout the country, posting myself as to the people,
productions, etc., and going up and down the Andes
many times by the different routes to the Magdalena.

One day Mr. Vaughan came up from the Magdalena in
his dog-cart. The road was new, and his was the first
vehicle that had passed over it, but the grading was
uniform, and a good horse could trot up or down it.
Vaughan and I messed together in Bogotá for about two
months. When he first arrived, he invited me to go back
with him in his dog-cart, down this Cambao road to his
country home. I promptly accepted his invitation, and he
was never satisfied after that until he had me safely
landed as his guest in his comfortable establishment. The
down trip was much more dangerous than the up. The
road, for the greater part of its length, was six feet four
inches wide, and several times we left our wheel-tracks
over the brink of the mountain down which we might
have rolled over two thousand feet. We
had in harness a great clay-bank brute with white legs,
who was as big a fool as Sam Patch, and would have
jumped with him down the falls of Niagara. Just as we
began to descend the mountain, a peacock paraded
himself in front of us, and elevating his tail lifted up his
voice in that terrible cry which is characteristic of that
bird. At the first note our clay-bank spun around and
darted at full speed up the mountain, until he met our
pack-train coming calmly down behind us. Vaughan was
then able to stop him and turn him back. Fortunately, the
road just there was broad and good, or we should have all
gone to Sam Patch.

That evening we halted for the night at a large spring of
fine water in a fertile valley surrounded by mountains ten
or twelve thousand feet high. Many of them were dotted
with farms and pastures extending to their very summits.
There were several adobe houses clustered together near
the spring, and we rented one of them for the night. The
family moved out with all their belongings, swept up the
rooms, and we took possession. Swinging our hammocks,
we took our dinner of cold fowl, tongue, etc., lighted our
cigars, and made ourselves easy for the night. About ten
o'clock a row broke out among the peons outside, of
whom there were about twenty of both sexes, who were
clamoring and fighting. The blows and imprecations fell
fast and furious, and the fray grew more violent, until
Vaughan sprang out of his hammock and took his pistol,
saying, “I must put a stop to that.” He spoke Spanish
well. I couldn't speak much Spanish, but I could shoot. So
I took my pistol and followed Vaughan, with a vague idea
of doing whatever he might tell me. Just at this moment
the police arrived, and quieted the combatants, by
carrying off one of them who had been on the ground
for some time. We then retired to sleep well until
morning, when we paid our rent of five cents, and moved
on.

We reached the river at Cambao that evening before
sunset. The river is about four hundred yards wide there,
deep and rapid, so we were ferried over in large canoes,
our horses swimming by their sides, and landed quite
safely and easily on the other shore, where we spent the
night very comfortably. During the night a vampire
sucked my horse, leaving a small mark upon his neck,
from which a drop or two of blood had oozed. We
mounted our dog-cart at daylight, and drove ten miles
over a level road to the fine establishment of Santuario.

Vaughan had excited my interest the night before by
his account of a tiger that had roamed the woods through
which we passed. Perhaps his vivid narrative may
account for the urgency with which I insisted on going
no further that night. Near the roadside, he pointed out
the tiger-trap, some ten yards away. We were very
comfortable at Santuario, where my son joined us, and we
spent several days very pleasantly. The young men killed
some pheasants, pigeons, quail, and a couple of the
pretty little deer of the plains. The mountain-sides and
pastures were all burning, but we saw no snakes. From
Santuario we drove over to the town of Ambulema, where
are the cigar factory and fine residence of Mr. Vaughan.
This was the largest establishment I was in while in the
country, and was perhaps the handsomest house. The
parlors, bedrooms, library, and billiard-rooms were all
paved with marble. The china and silverware bear the
name of the estate, and the excellent table is supplied with
wines, sauces, and canned luxuries from London.
An ice-machine gave us ice.

Here I waited several days for an up-river boat, on
which I went up to Giradot. The river was very low, and at
some of the rapids the whole crew went overboard with a
hawser, which they fastened to a tree on the bank, and
then proceeded to warp the boat up the rapids. As there
were only two feet of water, this was very slow work, but
we reached Giradot the second day by noon, and General
H. E. Morgan, an old Virginian, was waiting on this shore
to take me to his hospitable and comfortable home, where
I passed the night. Next morning he ordered a train to be
ready by eight o'clock and accompanied me to the
terminus of the railroad, now at Las Juntas, at the foot of
the mountains, where he detailed a bright Lieutenant
Gomez, his aide-de-camp, who speaks English, to escort
me to Bogotá.

This is the pleasantest of all the mountain roads. There
are several little towns on it, where good quarters can be
had, and beautiful brawling streams cross and run along
it; and, except for a short distance, it is practicable for
wagons, and affords the best route for a railroad. Several
reconnaissances have been made, but the government
and the contractors have never yet come to terms so
definite as to lead to this great result. We found
comfortable lodgings in the little town of Annapoyma,
and by midday next day I was met by my friend and
Secretary of Legation, Mr. Boschell, with a coach, and by
eventide was back in my own quarters. I do not believe
that any dog-cart has been down the Cambao road since.
It was a trip of great interest and some excitement to us,
especially to Vaughan, who felt responsible for me, and
never drew an easy breath while I was in the cart with
him.

General Henry Morgan, now Enrique Morgan, was a
native of Morefield Valley, Virginia. His family is well
known and esteemed in that region. When sixteen
years old, he enlisted in Stonewall Jackson's corps, and
served in it throughout the war between the States. On
the surrender of Lee, he went away from Virginia to seek
his fortunes in some country where he would feel freer
than in his native land. From California he went down to
Colombia, where he soon found employment. He liked the
country and the people, and became a citizen of it. He
served his adopted land with distinction in three
revolutions, won the grade of general, and is now
commander-in-chief of all the engineer troops, five
battalions, of the Colombian Army. His courage and
fidelity have won for him the confidence and love of the
people.

The ladies of Bogotá wear black upon the streets, with
mantillas, often of costly black lace, on their heads
instead of bonnets. Only occasionally are the latter worn
by some one who has been in the United States or
Europe. Many of them have small and beautiful feet and
hands. They are usually of the brunette type, and have
very gentle and winning manners.

There is a large asylum for foundlings, that of St.
Vincent de Paul. It is in excellent discipline and
organization, under the care of the sisters of the church.
The Lady Superior and her second in command
accompanied us in our visit to the various departments of
the building, and seemed much pleased with my
commendation of their good work, as with the small
donation which I left as a climax to my praise. I said on
leaving, “There is no such institution as this in my
country.” They replied, “Mil gracias, Señor”; when I
added, “Because we Protestants are too good to need
such an one.” At which preposterous statement these
ancient virgins shook their ample sides with convulsions
of incredulous laughter. All of the children
are of mothers of the lower classes, to whom the
institution is so great a boon as to be considered by
some people a very doubtful factor in the cause of
morality.

My own home in Bogotá was as comfortable and
complete as was possible when so far away from my
nearest kindred. It was presided over by the lovely wife of
my Secretary of Legation, and these good friends, more
than any others, contributed to the happiness of my stay.
The business of the Legation was conducted in such a
manner as to receive the cordial approval of our
government, repeatedly expressed, and when the result of
the presidential election was known, the Secretary of
Foreign Relations called at the American Legation to
inform me that measures had been taken by his
government to urge upon the government of the United
States that no change should be made in the personnel of
that legation. Surprised and gratified as I was by a tribute
so unusual, I cherished but little hope of its influence
upon the result.

The party axe fell promptly, and when I met my
successor, Mr. John T. Abbot, of New Hampshire, I felt
that in this case no injury could ensue to the public weal.
He is a gentleman of high ability, self-reliant, courageous,
and generous. My removal caused him genuine regret,
and he and his gentle family showed their warm interest
and sympathy, and he accompanied me in person on my
lonely journey from Bogotá to Honda, an arduous six
days' mule-ride for him, because he could not bear to see
me go alone and friendless then.